Primary
rainforests store the highest levels of both biodiversity and carbon across
land uses in South East Asia.
(September 22, 2015) A
new report by the Science-Policy Partnership Network, led by the University of
York, provides important new information to conserve biodiversity and
facilitate more sustainable palm oil production.
The report – ‘Co-benefits for biodiversity and carbon in
land planning decisions within oil palm landscapes’ -- examines relationships
between the amount of carbon and the amount of biodiversity in different
land-use types in Malaysia and Indonesia, and how land planning decisions aimed
at benefiting one of these vital resources will also benefit the other.
Dr Jennifer Lucey and Professor Jane Hill from the
Department of Biology at York, and Dr Glen Reynolds from the SE Asia Rainforest
Research Partnership (SEARRP), drafted the new report. This report responds to
a key question identified by the industry: “Are the land-uses that are
important for biodiversity the same land-uses that are important for carbon?”