New Delhi: Tiger reserves, which focus on species protection and hence biodiversity conservation, experience less deforestation compared to protected areas that have a tiger presence, but are not notified as reserves. This, new research says, translates into ecosystem services worth around $92 million between 2007 and 2020.
New research by the National University of Singapore and Princeton University has found that tiger reserves were better able to avert carbon emissions from forest loss, leading to gains in ecosystem services. The results of the research were made public Friday.
The study found that of 45 tiger reserves assessed in India, 11 collectively avoided carbon emissions of around 1.08 metric tonnes. If these avoided emissions were to be integrated into international voluntary carbon markets, they would be worth around US$6.24 million, based on the unit of US$5.8 per tonne, which is the average price of carbon in the voluntary carbon market.
Tiger reserves were chosen because through Project Tiger, they are afforded an extra layer of protection, monitoring and funding compared to other protected areas.
These findings, say the researchers, “offer empirical evidence at a broad geographical scale to support a biodiversity-first approach to climate change mitigation”.
The purpose of linking the carbon emissions averted with carbon pricing in voluntary markets is to demonstrate the benefits of integrating biodiversity conservation with the aim of mitigating climate change, the researchers say.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says biodiversity conservation is a key pillar for climate action aimed at reducing emissions.
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Reasons for averting emissions
According to the study, the most “valuable” tiger reserves that contributed the most to averting emissions were Nawegaon–Nagzira in Maharashtra, Similipal–Hadagarh in Odisha and Udanti–Sitanandi in Chhattisgarh.
“The observed avoided deforestation in these reserves is an important outcome of India’s tiger conservation policy because many of these protected areas are highly beneficial to ensuring connectivity in tiger habitats. For example, Nawegaon–Nagzira, which was the best-performing reserve in our analyses, has a vital role in ensuring landscape connectivity in tiger habitats in Central India,” says the study.
Four tiger reserves experienced significant forest loss despite the scheme, causing carbon emissions of approximately 0.21 metric tonnes, and equating to around $17.74 million “in damages due to the social cost of carbon emissions.”
The worst-performing tiger reserves in terms of additional emissions were Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh, Anamalai in Tamil Nadu and Dampa in Mizoram, the study found.
The researchers hypothesise that tiger reserves see greater averted carbon emissions on account of three factors. The first is better management of funds “which prevented delays in the disbursement of resources through the creation of local fund repositories” like tiger conservation foundations.
Secondly, sharing benefits from ecotourism revenues with local communities “was probably pivotal in reducing local pressures on forest areas”, the researchers say. Third, “the adoption of enhanced conservation monitoring technologies, especially GPS-based mobile tools, would have probably helped park managers in ensuring that forest guards patrolled protected areas more effectively,” they add.
Though the emissions avoided are a small fraction of what India needs in order to achieve its Paris Agreement goals, the study proves that economic benefits can be derived from such activity, according to the researchers.
The budget for Project Tiger in 2020-2021 was a little less than $27 million. “More than a quarter of this budget was paid back in over US$7 million per year between 2007 and 2020 from the avoided social cost of emissions. Although these annual returns are a fraction of the annual management costs of these reserves, they demonstrate that resources invested in biodiversity conservation can reimbursed in the form of economic benefits from ecosystem services,” the paper says.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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