Economic incentives to conserve orangutan habitat

Dr. Johannes Refisch, UNEP GRASP

January 2012

Sabah Wildlife Conservation Colloquium

GRASP: a UN-led partnershipRegistered as WSSD Type II Partnership

Photo from old albums

• UNEP and UNESCO

• Convention secretariats: CBD, CITES, CMS, WHC, Ramsar

• 23 great ape range states

• Over 40 NGOs, 4 private businesses

• Donors governments and foundations

Threats

• Habitat loss and fragmentation

(logging, agriculture, mining…)

• Poaching & Bushmeat

• Diseases such as Ebola

• Conflict and instability

Photo from threats album

Photo from threats album

SpeciesChimpanzee Bonobo Gorilla Orangutan

How can we provide economic incentives to conserve orangutan habitat?

• We compared two pilot sites, the swamp

forest in Tripa and mountain forest in Batang

Toru, both Sumatra

• We calculated potential income from REDD+

and other forms of payment for ecosystem

services and compared these figures with

income from current land use forms

Photo from threats album

Batang Toru, non-peatland, mountain forest

Deforestation driver: Encroachment by migrants, illegal logging, plantation expansion, potential road development

Opportunities:

Carbon, Water, SFM, Tourism, NTFP

Tripa, peatland, swamp forest

•Deforestation driver: Conversion of forest into oil palm plantations

•Opportunities:

Carbon, Water, SFM, Tourism, NTFP

2001-2009

Net present values for different land uses are from Tata and van Noordwijk (2010), carbon prices from Butler et al. 2009

In Tripa, if forest patches are conserved inside oil palm plantations, a minimum price of 5.2 USD/tCO2 would be needed to offset profit made from business as usual scenario where forest patches are converted.

Figures are from Beukering et al 2009

Figures are from Beukering et al 2009

Conclusions and recommendations• The carbon value of forests on non-peatlands is estimated at USD

3,711 – 11,185 per ha for a 25-year period. This value is higher than that for all other land uses assessed (agroforestry, sustainable logging and coffee, among others) except for oil palm, which has a value in the range of that of carbon (Net Present Value of USD 7,832 per ha).

• For forests on peatlands the range of net present values for carbon credits from avoided deforestation (USD 7,420 – 22,090 per ha for a 25-year period) are sufficient to offset the opportunity costs for the conversion of primary forest to oil palm plantation.

• Including the value of other ecosystem services (USD 3,735 per ha for a 30-year period) in the comparison could make forest conservation even more competitive than that of all alternative land uses.

Photo from threats album

Photo from threats album

Conclusions and recommendations

Focus further resource development including planned expansion of oil palm plantations on low current use value lands taking into account all social and environmental implications

Transformation from an economy based on consumptiveuse to a green economy based on non-consumptive use

provides many

•new jobs

•low carbon footprint

•equity

•sustainability

•Increase adaptive capacity

Opportunities:

Case for holistic approaches

• Traditonal Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICDPs) generated additional income, but funding leveragedcannot compete with drivers of deforestation and forestdegradation.

• These drivers include

•Energy

•Timber supply

•Small scale agriculture

•Large scale agrobusiness including oil palm

Transformation Gap

Integrated Conservation

and Development Projects

(IDPs)

Transformation

gap

Income from traditional ICDPs is not sufficient to sustain thetransformation process

Addressing the drivers will need to raiseadditional funds, e.g. private and public

Climate Change and REDD+ (Reduced Emissions through deforestationand degradation) one way to kickstart the transformation process

For forests, estimates suggest that € 4 per tonne of carbon dioxide would be a sufficient incentive to reduce current deforestation rates by 25% by 2015

Public funding to accessperformance payment

Private funding forperformance payment

Leverage funding forinvestments intoother forest andincome sources(water, tourism, timber, energy)

Carbon and conservation

Bernardo, B.N. et al. 2010

Report, eBook, maps, video, posters are available under

http://www.orangutanreport.un-grasp.org/