 This Policy Brief presents the results of eographically explicit analysis of the extent to which future pressures may lead to conversion of natural landscapes, both forested and non-forested, for agricultural purposes. It assesses where the greatest risk of conversion of the natural landscape for agricultural purposes lies, given the prevailing and projected legal, biophysical and projected economic conditions. Based on this, it assesses where conversion for agricultural purposes is likely to arise in the absence of an incentives system, and what volume of terrestrial carbon this represents. This analysis informs the question of incentive system scope by offering a long-term perspective of the net mitigation impact in the context of future land use change. It concludes that REDD+ will not achieve the necessary mitigation impact if it does not also address agriculture, at least as a driver of land use change.
|