International - Raising the value of biodiversity-friendly cocoa and carbon storage: ensuring sustainable incomes around Gola Rainforest National Park

热带森林和农业争夺同样的土地，但利益分配给了不同的人。热带森林的两个主要好处是热带自然的持续存在，它丰富了我们的生活，以及在活树中储存碳，它调节了我们的气候。世界各地的人们都能从中受益。相反，农业的大部分利益（粮食和收入）归农民本人，加上地方和国家消费者以及地方和国家经济。其结果是，任何特定地点的土地使用决定将主要由农业的受益者而不是热带森林的受益者作出，原因很明显：农民知道他们从将森林转化为农业中受益，并且能够将他们的愿望转化为行动，而热带森林的受益者是全球性的，但个人受益很少，而且很难将他们的愿望转化为行动。其结果是，热带森林继续被转化为农业。试图纠正这种决策不平衡的一种方法是使用所谓的“基于市场的工具”，使热带森林的保护对当地社区和农业企业来说至少像农业一样有利可图。其中两种工具是碳信用支付和农产品溢价定价。例如，航空公司航班和“热带雨林友好型”巧克力棒的消费者支付额外费用，产生的收入流直接流向国家及其当地居民，以补偿他们没有将森林转化为农田。然而，最大的挑战是验证这些支付确实导致了对高碳和高生物多样性森林的保护。直到最近，这一挑战在很大程度上是无法克服的，因为以可审计和低成本的方式测量森林碳和生物多样性存在技术困难。不过，最近卫星遥感的重大进展使人们能够以低成本重复追踪森林覆盖的变化（在许多情况下，可以免费下载）。剩下的挑战是解释这些数据丰富的图像，以便量化地上生物量的变化（以测量碳储量的变化）和这些森林所包含的生物多样性的数量。这一挑战需要地面测量来生成数据，这些数据可用于解释来自卫星传感器的原始数据。这就是我们在塞拉利昂戈拉雨林国家公园（GRNP） 908平方公里的森林缓冲区中提出的建议，在那里，可可是森林砍伐的潜在驱动力，是主要的经济作物。到目前为止，只有一小部分农民获得了“热带雨林友好型”可可的更高价格，如果缓冲区的森林砍伐继续有增无减，对碳的支付就会受到威胁。以卫星为基础的测绘将为可持续发展计划提供信息，使可可种植能够定向到低碳和生物多样性地区，而正在进行的以卫星为基础的监测将使任何人都可以轻松地核实碳储量和生物多样性是否得到了保护。因此，对热带雨林友好型可可的碳支付和溢价定价将得到保障和扩大，从而改善生活在缓冲地带的22000人的福利，同时也减轻了对森林的压力。该项目是与GRC-LG共同设计的，GRC-LG负责管理GRNP，并确定需要一个更好的决策支持系统。目前通过五年一次的调查来验证碳支付的方法效率低下，而且没有考虑到生物多样性。GRC-LG与塞拉利昂政府有着密切的联系，使这项工作处于有利地位，可以影响西非其他森林碳项目的管理。关键词：生物多样性，碳，可可，REDD+，元条形码，遥感，热带森林

Tropical forest and agriculture compete for the same land, but the benefits are distributed to different people. Two key benefits from tropical forest are the continued existence of tropical nature, which enriches our lives, and the storage of carbon in living trees, which regulates our climate. These benefits accrue to people around the world. In contrast, most of the benefits from agriculture (food and income) accrue to the farmers themselves, plus local and national consumers and local and national economies.The consequence is that land-use decisions in any given location will mostly be made by the beneficiaries of agriculture rather than the beneficiaries of tropical forest, for obvious reasons: farmers know that they benefit from converting forest to agriculture and are able to convert their desires into action, while the beneficiaries of tropical forest are global but individually only benefit a little and also find it difficult to convert their desires into action. The result is that tropical forest continues to be converted to agriculture.One way to try to right this imbalance in decision-making is to use what are called 'market-based instruments' to make the conservation of tropical forest at least as profitable to local communities and to agribusinesses as farming. Two such instruments are carbon-credit payments and premium-pricing for agricultural goods. For instance, consumers of airline flights and 'Rainforest-Friendly' chocolate bars pay extra, and the generated income streams are directed to countries and their local populations to compensate them for not converting forest to farmland.However, the big challenge is to verify that these payments are indeed resulting in the conservation of forest that is high in carbon and biodiversity. Until recently, this challenge has been largely insuperable because of the technical difficulties of measuring forest carbon and biodiversity in ways that are auditable and low-cost. Recently, though, major advances in satellite remote-sensing are making it possible to track changes in forest cover, repeatedly and at a low cost per image (in many cases, free to download).The remaining challenge is to interpret these data-rich images in order to quantify changes in the amount of aboveground biomass (to measure change in carbon stocks) and in the amount of biodiversity that those forests contain. This challenge requires on-the-ground measurements to generate the data that can be used to interpret raw data from satellite-based sensors.This is what we propose, working in the 908 km2 forested buffer zone of the Gola Rainforest National Park (GRNP) in Sierra Leone, where cocoa, a potential driver of deforestation, is the main cash crop. So far, only a small portion of farmers receive a higher price for 'Rainforest Friendly' cocoa, and payments for carbon are jeopardised if forest clearance in the buffer zone continues unabated. Satellite-based mapping would inform sustainable development plans that allow cocoa expansion to be directed to areas of low carbon and biodiversity, and ongoing satellite-based monitoring would make it possible for anyone to easily verify whether carbon stocks and biodiversity are being protected. Carbon payments and premium-pricing for Rainforest-Friendly cocoa would therefore be safeguarded and expanded, improving the welfare of the 22,000 people living in the buffer zone while also reducing pressure on forest.This project has been co-designed with GRC-LG who manage the GRNP and who identified the need for a better decision-support system. The current method of verification for carbon payments via five-yearly surveys is inefficient and does not account for biodiversity. GRC-LG has strong links with the Sierra Leone government, placing this work in a strong position to influence the management of other forest-carbon projects in West Africa.Keywords: biodiversity, carbon, cocoa, REDD+, metabarcoding, remote sensing, tropical forest