Some of the world's poorest people are bearing the costs of tropical forest conservation

Some of the world's poorest people are bearing the costs of tropical forest conservation

5 years ago
Anonymous $cyhBy-qkd5

https://phys.org/news/2018-07-world-poorest-people-tropical-forest.html

The researchers from Bangor University in the UK and the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar looked at a new protected area and REDD+ pilot project in the eastern rainforests of Madagascar called the Coridor Ankeniheny Zahamena (or CAZ). This conservation project is conserving very high profile biodiversity (including the Indri-the largest lemur in the world), but a big part of the rationale for protecting the area is climate mitigation; locking up carbon to combat climate change.

In their paper, peer-reviewed and published in PeerJ - the Journal of Life & Environmental Sciences, the researchers show that the new conservation restrictions bring very significant costs to local people (representing up to 85% of local annual incomes). Compensation, in the form of help with improved agriculture, was offered to a small subset of people but none were fully compensated.