Biodiversity and carbon: perfect together

Biodiversity conservation is often considered to be a co-benefit of protecting carbon sinks such as intact forests to help mitigate climate change.

Researchers tested this correlation by conducting 97 face-to-face interviews of local land-use experts in twelve landscapes in seven countries and five continents, followed by another set of face-to-face interviews with biodiversity experts.

They found positive carbon-to-biodiversity relationships in ten of the twelve landscapes, with biodiversity impacts of measures to increase carbon also positive in eleven of the twelve landscapes, thus indicating that a random land-use change that increases biodiversity is also likely to increase carbon and vice versa.

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