Forest
Conservation for Carbon and Communities
Can forest
conservation can lead to both carbon and community benefits in the Bale
Mountains Eco-Region in south-east Ethiopia?
Current research is focussed in part of the Eastern Afro-montane biodiversity hotspot in the Ethiopian Highlands; the Bale Mountains Eco-Region. Ongoing deforestation in the second largest stand of moist forest in Ethiopia threatens a wealth of ecosystem services. The carbon markets have been looked toward to finance forest conservation with purported co-benefits for conservation and communities. But have the costs of avoided deforestation to local communities been assessed adequately? Should forest carbon be looked towards as one part of a conservation toolkit rather than as a golden solution, or substitute to existing forest conservation efforts?
Supervision and Funding
This PhD
research is jointly supervised by
Dr Susana Mourato and
Professor E.J.
Milner-Gulland. The research is funded by the Economic and Social Research
Council (ESRC), the
Frankfurt Zoological Society and the
Bale Eco-Region Sustainable Management Programme, a Farm Africa SOS Sahel
partnership. The
Bale
Mountains National Park and national authorities have also provided
invaluable support.
Recent Publications
Watson, C. (2010)
Rapid Guide to
REDD. Farm Africa/SOS-Sahel BERSMP. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Nicholson, E. et al.
(2009)
Priority research areas for ecosystem services in a changing world.
Journal of Applied Ecology.
UNDP (2009)
Forest Carbon Accounting: Overview and Principles.
UNDP-UNEP CDM Capacity Development Project for Eastern & Southern Africa. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Watson, C. & Fankhauser, S. (2009)
The Clean Development Mechanism: sustainable development benefits. World Development Report 2010, World Bank Background
paper.
Watson, C. (2009)
Public Good Provision through Forestry.
Farm Africa/SOS-Sahel BERSM Programme.Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
NCF (2009) Global Kyoto Research Note: The impact of forestry
on the global carbon market. New Carbon Finance, New Energy Finance, London UK
Watson, C. (2008)
Counting the Costs of Conservation.
TREES: Journal of the International Tree Foundation, 68: 15-17.
Watson, C., Milner-Gulland, E.J., & Mourato, S. (in press) Direct Consumptive
Use Value of Ecosystem Goods and Services in the Bale Mountains Eco-region,
Ethiopia. Walia.
Email:
c.watson2@lse.ac.uk
See also:
www.iccs.org.uk/charlenewatson and
www.kilimanyika.com/ppl_cw.htm
London School of Economics and Politics
Department of Geography and the Environment
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE, UK
Page updated July 2010