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Carbon Management
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Forest carbon in Amazonia: the unrecognized
contribution of indigenous territories and protected
natural areas
Wayne Walkera, Alessandro Baccinia, Stephan Schwartzmanb, Sandra Ríoscg, María A.
Oliveira-Mirandadg, Cicero Augustoeg, Milton Romero Ruizfg, Carla Soria Arrascocg, Beto
Ricardoeh, Richard Smithcg, Chris Meyerb, Juan Carlos Jintiachi & Edwin Vasquez Camposj
a Woods Hole Research Center/WHRC, 149 Woods Hole Road, Falmouth, MA02540USA
b Environmental Defense Fund/EDF, 1875 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington,
DC20009USA
c Instituto del Bien Común/IBC, Av. Salaverry 818, Lima11–Perú
d Provita, Av. Rómulo Gallegos, Edf. Pascal, Ofc 171A, Caracas, Venezuela 1071
e Instituto Socioambiental/ISA, Av. Higienópolis, 901 s.30, 01238-001São Paulo, SP, Brasil
f Fundación GAIA Amazonas, Carrera 4 # 26d – 31, Bogotá, Colombia
g Member – Red Amazónica de Información Socioambiental Georreferenciada/RAISG
h Coordinator – Red Amazónica de Información Socioambiental Georreferenciada/RAISG
i Regional Technical Coordinator - Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indígenas de la
Cuenca Amazónica/COICA
j General Coordinator – Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indígenas de la Cuenca
Amazónica/COICA
Accepted author version posted online: 02 Dec 2014.Published online: 20 Dec 2014.
To cite this article: Wayne Walker, Alessandro Baccini, Stephan Schwartzman, Sandra Ríos, María A. Oliveira-Miranda,
Cicero Augusto, Milton Romero Ruiz, Carla Soria Arrasco, Beto Ricardo, Richard Smith, Chris Meyer, Juan Carlos Jintiach
& Edwin Vasquez Campos (2014): Forest carbon in Amazonia: the unrecognized contribution of indigenous territories and
protected natural areas, Carbon Management, DOI: 10.1080/17583004.2014.990680
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17583004.2014.990680
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Policy Focus
Forest carbon in Amazonia: the unrecognized
contribution of indigenous territories and protected
natural areas
More than half (52%; 4.1 million km2) of Amazonia's
tropical ecosystems are contained within an extensive
network of 2344 indigenous territories (ITs) and 610
protected natural areas (PNAs) spanning nine South
American nations (Figure 1). These cornerstones of
Amazon conservation are widely recognized for their
exceptional biological, cultural and linguistic diver-
sity [1–3], and serve as both social and natural barriers
to frontier expansion and fire [4–6]. In countries like
Brazil, where deforestation has been high historically,
they are also viewed as central to strategies designed
to avoid atmospheric carbon emissions stemming from
deforestation and forest degradation [7]. Carbon seques-
tration is an often-acknowledged service provided by
tropical forest ecosystems worldwide, and while it is
generally understood that the amount of carbon stored
above ground in Amazonia is significant, until recently
the information needed to quantify the contribution
of Amazonian ITs and PNAs to carbon storage at the
global scale remained either lacking or out of reach. A
novel collaboration among scientists, Pan-Amazonian
indigenous and non-governmental organization (NGO)
A Policy Focus submission to Carbon Management (2015)
Wayne Walker1*, Alessandro Baccini1, Stephan Schwartzman2, Sandra Ríos3,7
,
María A. Oliveira-Miranda4,7
, Cicero Augusto5,7
, Milton Romero Ruiz6,7
, Carla Soria Arrasco3,7
,
Beto Ricardo5,8, Richard Smith3,7
, Chris Meyer2, Juan Carlos Jintiach9 & Edwin Vasquez Campos10
Carbon sequestration is a widel y acknowledged and increasingly valued function of tropical f orest ecosystems;
however, until recently, the information needed to assess the car bon storage capacity of Amazonian indigenous
territories (ITs) and protected natural areas (PNAs) in a global context remained either lacking or out of reach.
Here, as part of a novel north–south collaboration among Amazonian indigenous and non-governmental
organization (NGO) networks, scientists and policy experts, we show that the nine-nation network of nearly
3000 ITs and PNAs stores more carbon above ground than all of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and
Indonesia combined, and, despite the ostensibly secure status of these cornerstones of Amazon conservation,
a conservative risk assessment considering only ongoing and planned development projects puts nearly 20%
of this carbon at risk, encompassing an area of tropical forest larger than that found in Colombia, Ecuador
and Peru combined. International recognition of and renewed investment in these globally vital landscapes
are therefore critical to ensuring their continued contribution to maintaining cultural identity, ecosystem
integrity and climate stability.
1 Woods Hole Res earch Center/WHRC, 149 Woods Hole Road, Falmouth, M A02540USA
2 Environmental Defense Fund/EDF, 1875 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC20009USA
3 Instituto del Bien Común/IBC, Av. Salaverry 818, Lima11–Perú
4 Provita, Av. Rómulo Gallegos, Edf. Pascal, Ofc 171A, Caracas, Venezuela 1071
5 Instituto Socioambiental/ISA, Av. Higienópolis, 901s.30, 01238-001São Paulo, SP, Brasil
6 Fundación GAIA Amazonas, Carrera 4 # 26d – 31, Bogotá, Colombia
7 Member – Red Amazónica de Información Socioambiental Georreferenciada/RAISG
8 Coordinator – Red Amazónica de Información Socioambiental Georreferenciada/RAISG
9 Regional Technical Coordinator - Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indígenas de la Cuenca Amazónica/COICA
10 General Coordinator – Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indígenas de la Cuenca Amazónica/COICA
*Author for correspondence: Tel.: 508 444 1541; Fax: 508 540 9700; E-mail: wwalker@whrc.org
Downloaded by [190.73.161.102] at 12:43 07 February 2015
Carbon Management (2015)
2
Policy Focus Walker, Baccini et al.
networks, and policy experts has
linked newly compiled spatial data
sets on pantropical aboveground
forest carbon density [8], Amazonian
ITs and PNAs, and risks to their
integrity from current pressures
and/or near-term threats [101]. Our
analysis suggests that the carbon
stored across these ostensibly secure
landscapes is of a magnitude not
previously appreciated in global
terms, and is sufficient to either
destabilize or contribute to the sta-
bilization of the planet's atmosphere
depending on the collective impact
of ongoing and planned devel-
opment projects. In this century
alone, more than 253,000 km2 of
Amazonian rainforest – an area the
size of the United Kingdom – have
been lost [9] as a result of increasing
pressures linked to climate change,
agriculture expansion, road and
hydroelectric plant construction and
the extraction of timber, fossil fuels
and precious metals [10,101]. During
this same period, indigenous land
rights and environmental regula-
tion of forest land use, while largely
unimplemented in some countries,
have alternately advanced and come
under political attack and could be
compromised further under increas-
ing demands for agricultural and
energy commodities. The Government of Ecuador's
signing of permits that allow for long-contested oil
drilling to commence in Yasuni National Park – a
UNESCO biosphere reserve containing pristine for-
ests and uncontacted indigenous tribes – is a recent,
albeit unexceptional, example of the very real and pre-
sent risks to global culture, conservation and climate
facing landscapes commonly perceived as being out of
harm's way [102].
Carbon storage in ITs and PNAs
Amazonian indigenous leaders, cognizant of discussions
centered on the role of tropical forests in international
climate negotiations, called for an analysis to better
understand the contribution of ITs and PNAs to global
carbon storage, one increasingly acknowledged ecosys-
tem function among the wide range of cultural and envi-
ronmental services indigenous lands are recognized to
provide. The investigation was an outgrowth of broader
indigenous interests focused on building political,
technical and institutional competencies around the
complexity of issues at the intersection of international
climate change policy, sustainable economic develop-
ment and indigenous territorial rights. Indigenous
organizations and communities actively participated in
the process of data gathering and interpretation.
The results of the analysis reveal that the Amazonian
region stores nearly 38% (86,121 MtC; Figure 1) of the
228,700 MtC found above ground in the woody vegeta-
tion of tropical America, Africa and Asia [8]. By them-
selves, Amazonian ITs are responsible for storing nearly
one third (32.8%) of the region's aboveground carbon
(28,247 MtC; Table S1) on roughly 30% (2.4 million
km2; Table S2) of the land area. This result is note-
worthy when considering that more carbon is stored in
Amazonian ITs than is found in all of the forests of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC; 22,128 MtC)
or the Republic of Indonesia (18,851 MtC; Table S1),
two countries where considerable international attention
and investment are now being directed toward the long-
term protection of these large yet vulnerable expanses of
remaining tropical forest. The analysis was conducted
by combining a pantropical data set of aboveground
carbon density derived from a novel combination of
field and satellite measurements [8] with the most com-
prehensive database of IT and PNA limits available for
the nine-nation region [see supporting online material
(SOM), available from the article’s Taylor & Francis
Online page at htt p://dx.doi.org /10.1080/17583004
.2014.990680.]. Expanding the scope of the analysis
to include not only the aboveground carbon stocks of
Amazonian ITs but also those of PNAs, we find that well
over half (55%; 47,363 MtC; Figure 1) of the region's
carbon is contained within this multi-nation network of
forest-dominated landscapes. Remarkably, this is more
carbon than is stored above ground in all of the DRC
and Indonesia combined (40,979 MtC; Table S1) and,
by recent accounts, sufficient to irreversibly alter conti-
nental-scale rainfall and climate regimes if released [11].
Assessing pressures and threats
While there is little debate about the impending risks
to the Amazonian forest estate, its carbon stores or any
of the broad range of ecosystem services the region's
forests provide at local to global scales, forecasting the
likely areal extent of these risks across such an economi-
cally and politically diverse landscape is not without its
inherent uncertainty. Here, we performed a conserva-
tive yet spatially explicit risk assessment focused on the
carbon currently stored above ground in Amazonian ITs
and PNAs (Figure 1; SOM). Areas directly impacted
by current (i.e., active and ongoing) development
across primary production and infrastructure sectors,
i.e., agriculture, grazing, mining, petroleum, timber
Key terms
Amazonia: The most commonly
referenced boundaries of the Amazon
region are biophysical, related to
hydrography, topography and/or
vegetation, and administrative as
recognized by the various nations for
the application of protection and/or
development policies. The limit of
Amazonia used here (Figure 1) consists
primarily of a biogeographical boundary
of the Amazon ecosystem, with
exceptions for Ecuador and Brazil where
additional legal and administrative
criteria are applied.
Indigenous territories: Lands of the 385
indigenous peoples living in Amazonia,
which include ocially recognized areas
of traditional use and occupation, as
well as traditionally used and occupied
areas lacking ocial recognition and
territorial reserves or intangible zones
set aside for peoples living in isolation.
Protected natural areas: Lands having
ocial conservation status including
indirect use areas where natural
resource extrac tion is prohibited, direct
use areas where extraction is permitted
under management plans and areas of
transitory (or mixed) use.
Aboveground forest carbon density:
The total amount of carbon contained
above ground in the woody biomass of
live vegetation. Forests contain more
carbon above ground than nonforests
but there can be considerable spatial
variability in carbon density (e.g.,
megagrams of carbon per hectare)
within a given forest type.
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Forest carbon in Amazonia Policy Focus
3
and transportation, were classified as under pressure,
while areas likely to be impacted in the near term by
projects or concessions described in current government
and/or development agency planning documents were
characterized as under threat [101]. Risk (i.e., pressure
and/or threat) was then quantified based on the overlap
with, and/or relative proximity to, current or planned
development activities (SOM).
Our analysis indicates that more than half (53%) of
the Amazonian region by area (i.e., approximately 4.2
million km2) is at risk from either current pressures
(65%) or near-term threats (35%; Figure 1; Table S3).
In total, this vast expanse of at-risk land – equal to half
the size of Brazil – is currently responsible for storing
nearly 46% (39,743 MtC) of Amazonian aboveground
carbon, which is more carbon than is stored above
ground in all of Russia (32,500 MtC) and more than
twice that stored in the United States (19,308 MtC;
Table S1). Approximately 43% of this at-risk carbon,
or 17,017 MtC, an amount equivalent to 90% of the
aboveground carbon stock of Indonesia, is contained
within the borders of Amazonian ITs and PNAs, lands
Figure 1. Amazon forest carbon at risk. (A) Risks (i.e., current pressures and near-term threats; see Table S3) to
the distribution of (B) carbon stored above ground in the woody biomass of Amazonian tropical forests (C) as a
percentage of the basin-wide total (i.e., 86,120 million metric tons carbon, MtC): ITs – 23,380 MtC (27.1%), PNAs – 19,116
MtC (22.2%), areas of overlapping ITs and PNAs – 4867 MtC (5.7%) and all other land – 39,376 MtC (45.0%) (see Table S1).
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Carbon Management (2015)
4
Policy Focus Walker, Baccini et al.
that are commonly assumed to be all but free from
risk, if only by virtue of their protected status. In fact,
a remarkably large proportion of the land contained
within Amazonian ITs and PNAs is at risk, includ-
ing 40% (794,030 km2) of ITs, 30% (514,879 km2) of
PNAs and 24% (90,280 km2) of regions where the two
overlap (Table S3). In total, the combined area of ITs
and PNAs under either pressure or threat constitutes
18% (1.4 million km2) of Amazonia, an area larger
than the Amazonian regions of Colombia, Ecuador
and Peru combined (Table S2).
This assessment was designed to be intentionally con-
servative where risks to IT and PNA carbon stocks are
concerned, insofar as it does not attempt to quantify
illegal extractive activities or future deforestation threats
(legal or illegal). For example, the analysis does not con-
sider the loss of forest that predictably follows planned
road construction or improvement, and the expanded
access to the forest interior that naturally accompa-
nies such infrastructure development. Historically, the
majority of Amazon infrastructure development and
associated official government investment has been
geopolitically motivated rather than economically
driven [12]. Because the analysis was limited to devel-
opment activities that were either active or planned,
the results are likely to more accurately reflect invest-
ments – and the accompanying risks – stemming from
geopolitical decision-making, which might otherwise be
unaccounted for by more theoretically based economic
models.
Amazonian protected lands and forest/climate
policy
Tropical deforestation continued unabated globally over
the period 2000–2012, increasing by approximately
2100 km2 yr−1, notwithstanding Brazil's recent successes
in curtailing large-scale forest losses [9]. The results of
recent modeling efforts suggest that halting tropical
deforestation, which accounts for 6–17% of global
anthropogenic CO2 emissions to the atmosphere [13],
when combined with substantial reductions in emis-
sions from fossil fuels and other sectors, would increase
to 65% the probability of maintaining global warming
below the UNFCCC target of 2°C above pre-industrial
levels [103]. Given the enormous amount of carbon stored
in Amazonian ITs and PNAs alone, maintaining the
ecological integrity of these landscapes is a critical,
albeit insufficient, step toward reducing emissions of
CO2 from land use change.
Recent research emphasizes that stemming the tide
of large-scale tropical forest loss will depend on increas-
ing the agricultural yield on existing farmland and
degraded areas [14 ,15]. However, most estimates of the
costs of reducing deforestation focus on opportunity
costs of forgone agriculture production and omit the
costs not only of maintaining ITs and PNAs [104], but
also of creating the necessary sustainable development
opportunities for their resident populations (Table S4).
While corporate commitments to “zero deforestation”
commodity supply chains together with multi-stake-
holder processes such as The Consumer Goods Forum
and commodity roundtables (e.g., Roundtable for
Sustainable Palm Oil, Roundtable for Responsible Soy,
Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef and Brazilian
Roundtable on Sustainable Livestock) may reduce
deforestation pressures on some forest landscapes, ITs
and PNAs are not directly linked to commodity supply
chains and these efforts will not, by themselves, achieve
the development goals of indigenous and forest-dwell-
ing peoples, or provide for the effective implementation
and maintenance of conservation areas. It follows that
specific policies and investments in support of effective
forest protection, sustainable development pathways
for the populations that inhabit ITs and PNAs, and
equitable valuation of their social and environmental
services, are fundamental to realizing robust, large-
scale reductions in emissions from land use change.
In short, strategies – and national and international
funding initiatives – for large-scale forest conservation
need to include actions and investments on both sides of
the agricultural frontier. While our analysis has focused
on Amazonia, this conclusion is relevant to Indonesia
as well, particularly in light of the widespread presence
of indigenous peoples in its remaining forests as well
as the extensive literature documenting the centrality
of local community control over land and resources
for sustainable management practices in the region [16].
The sheer scale of Amazonian ITs and PNAs, the for-
ests they contain and the carbon they store, combined
with the substantial risks posed by present and near-
future development, suggests that basin-wide incentives
to upwardly harmonize and implement indigenous land
and resource rights, together with forest protection and
sustainable use policies, are justified on the basis of the
climate benefits alone, but would also produce multi-
ple social, cultural and ecological co-benefits. Given
that nearly 14% of the carbon stored above ground in
Amazonian ITs is contained within territories lacking
official government recognition, legally recognizing
these territories as well as settling private land claims
in PNAs is, by any measure, an urgent priority. While
management systems for territories under indigenous
control vary considerably across the region, they tend
to be closely adapted to, and based on extensive knowl-
edge of, local ecosystems. As a result, indigenous ter-
ritorial management practices contribute directly to
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Forest carbon in Amazonia Policy Focus
5
the development and maintenance of ecosystem com-
position, structure and function [17–19]. Although the
maintenance of forest carbon stocks in ITs cannot be
attributed to indigenous management per se, the inex-
tricable relationship between Amazonian indigenous
cultural identity and tropical forest ecosystems, includ-
ing their flora and fauna, forms the basis of indigenous
peoples’ ongoing political struggle for recognition of
their land and resource rights and the extant indigenous
territories. Whereas indigenous management systems
have proved largely sustainable at least since the colonial
era, they will require new technologies, capacities – and
political alliances – in order to successfully meet the
development challenges and market pressures of the 21st
century. In recent years, indigenous peoples and their
civil society supporters have had considerable success
in incorporating social safeguards into existing and
proposed guidelines for REDD+ [105–10 7], and Peru's
inclusion of indigenous land titling and community
forestry governance in its National Investment Plan for
the Forest Investment Partnership financing offers a
template for ongoing indigenous territorial rights dis-
cussions basin-wide.
Given the recognized potential of ITs and PNAs to
limit or prevent deforestation and forest degradation [7],
while at the same time acknowledging the widespread
near-term risk to their forests, the indigenous and tra-
ditional communities that inhabit many of them and
the vast stocks of carbon they contain, bilateral and
multilateral donors should devote a significant portion
of capacity building and “payment for performance”
funding to a comprehensive, integrated strategy for
the protection and sustainable development of these
landscapes. Amazonian nations that officially recog-
nize indigenous territorial and resource rights, invest
in sustainable livelihoods for forest peoples, develop
and implement national protected area management
plans and participatory national policies for indigenous
territorial management (i.e., akin to Brazil's National
Program for Environmental Management of Indigenous
Lands – PNGATI) and commit national funds to match
international donor investments, should be allowed to
count some proportion of their IT and PNA carbon
stocks toward post-2020 emissions reductions targets
under the UNFCCC, and should be preferentially eli-
gible for both REDD+ and climate adaptation financ-
ing. These resources should be complemented by infra-
structure compensation funds, fines for environmental
infractions and government investment in monitoring
and law enforcement.
Estimates of the costs of protecting Amazonian
ITs and PNAs while developing sustainable economic
development alternatives for local communities are
inherently uncertain, and merit further research and
analysis. However, a conservative approximation of the
costs – likely on the order of US $2–4 billion – required
to create and consolidate ITs and PNAs, while at the
same time establishing endowments to support fixed
recurring costs, including administrative and moni-
toring operations, puts them easily within the scale of
bilateral and multilateral funding presently committed
to reducing deforestation (Table S5). Indigenous terri-
tories and inhabited PNAs also need budgetary outlays
for social services such as healthcare and education.
Ultimately, the sustainability of ITs and PNAs will
depend on the strength and stability of the economies
surrounding them. While a basin-wide transition to
sustainable economic development pathways for rural
and urban economies is likely to come at a significantly
higher cost, it could also generate correspondingly
higher benefits over time [11]. Bilateral and multilat-
eral donor funds, philanthropy, private carbon finance,
infrastructure development compensation and impact
mitigation funds, as well as fines for environmental
infractions, are all potential sources of financing.
Future perspective
Previous attempts to predict the broad impacts of
development on tropical forest cover, CO2 emissions
trajectories and lands with conservation status have
been either characterized by high uncertainties in the
absence of consistent and accurate region-wide esti-
mates of carbon density or restricted geographically
(e.g., to the Brazilian Amazon) in the absence of a
comprehensive basin-wide database of spatially explicit
IT and PNA limits [7]. Efforts to model the potential
feedbacks among climate change, fire and forest loss
while evaluating the probability of future large-scale
Amazon drought and forest dieback have similarly been
hampered by uncertainties surrounding the availability
of data such as those compiled here [108]. Despite the
uncertainty surrounding the mid- to long-term impacts
of climate change on the Amazon, including chang-
ing regional temperature and precipitation regimes,
releasing the carbon currently at risk in Amazon ITs
alone – equivalent to clearing all of Peru's forests –
would increase the probability of Amazon dieback [20],
with deleterious and potentially irreversible effects on
the atmosphere and the planet.
At the 2013 UNFCCC Climate Change Conference,
19th Conference of the Parties (COP 19), countries
agreed to the Warsaw Framework for REDD+, establish-
ing the principles and guidelines necessary for REDD+
to become operational (Decisions 9–16/COP 19). At
the 2014 conference (COP 20) in Lima, Peru, nego-
tiators are expected to agree that significant REDD+
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Carbon Management (2015)
6
Policy Focus Walker, Baccini et al.
financing should be part of the international climate
change treaty scheduled for ratification at COP 21 in
Paris, France. Some $8.5 billion in bilateral and multi-
lateral funding has already been committed to REDD+
with only a fraction allocated to ITs and PNAs (Table
S5) [109]. Policies to address climate change, including
efforts to measure and monitor forest loss and associated
carbon emissions, will inevitably continue to be national
and subnational prerogatives, and, consequently, for-
est protection and sustainable development programs
will be designed and implemented, as current policy
frameworks mandate, at national and subnational levels.
However, the global importance of Amazonian ITs and
PNAs, not only to the planet's atmosphere, but also in
consideration of the broad range of social and ecological
benefits they provide, merits international recognition
through the UNFCCC as well as large-scale, integrated
investment in these landscapes and the people who
inhabit them. While ITs and PNAs provide numerous
environmental and social services with multiple material
and immaterial values that extend well beyond carbon,
these landscapes are of critical global importance on
the basis of their carbon stocks alone and the role they
necessarily have to play in maintaining the stability of
the planet's climate.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Juan Calles, Saúl Cuellar, Fernando
Espíndola, Mary Farina, Carol Franco, Humberto Gómez,
Erica Johnson, Daniel Larrea, Víctor López , Alicia Rolla,
Márcio Santilli, Adriana Sarmiento, Percy Summers, Pedro
Tipula, Janette Ulloa, Lisa Walker, Allison White and Sergio
Zambrano-Martínez for their valuable comments on an earlier
draft of this manuscript and/or assistance with data
preparation.
Financial and competing interests disclosure
Data compilation and analysis was supported by the World Bank,
Rainforest Foundation Norway, Ford Foundation, Gordon and
Betty Moore Foundation and the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID). The authors have no other
relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization
or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the
subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from
those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production
of this manuscript.
Supplementary data
Supplemental data for this article as well as a Spanish
language translation can be accessed at, at http://d x.doi.
org/10.1080/17583004.2014.990680.
Executive summary
Background
More than half of Amazonia (52%; ∼4.1 million km2) is contained within a network of 2954 indigenous territories (ITs) and protected natural
areas (PNAs) spanning nine nations.
These landscapes provide numerous environmental and social benets of global importance including climate stabilization through forest
carbon sequestration.
Carbon storage in ITs and PNAs
More carbon is stored above ground in Amazonian ITs than is stored in all the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Amazonian ITs and PNAs store more than half (55%) of the region's aboveground carbon, which is more carbon than is stored above
ground in all of the DRC and Indonesia combined.
Assessing pressures and threats
More than half of the Amazonian region (53%; ∼4.2 million km2) is at risk from either current pressures or near-term threats associated with
growth in the agriculture, grazing, mining, petroleum, timber and transportation sectors.
Approximately 43% of this at-risk carbon, an amount equivalent to 90% of the aboveground carbon stock of Indonesia, is contained within
the ostensibly secure borders of Amazonian ITs and PNAs.
The combined area of ITs and PNAs at risk constitutes 18% (∼1.4 million km2) of Amazonia, an area larger than the Colombian, Ecuadorian
and Peruvian Amazon combined.
Amazonian protected lands and forest/climate policy
Nearly 14% of the carbon stored above ground in Amazonian ITs is contained within territories lacking ocial recognition; obtaining legal
recognition for ITs and settling private land claims in PNAs are urgent priorities.
The costs of creating and consolidating ITs and PNAs and establishing endowments to support administrative operations and monitoring
is conservatively estimated at $2–4 billion, a sum well within the scale of present international commitments to reducing deforestation.
Amazon nations that commit to protect and make social and economic investments in ITs and PNAs should be allowed to count some
proportion of their IT and PNA carbon stocks toward post-2020 emissions reductions targets under the UNFCCC.
The sustainability of ITs and PNAs will depend on the strength and stability of their surrounding economies, necessitating a basin-wide
transition to sustainable rural and urban economic development pathways.
Given the carbon stored in Amazonian ITs and PNAs alone, international recognition of and renewed investment in maintaining the
ecological integrity of these landscapes are critical to reducing emissions of CO2 from land use change.
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Forest carbon in Amazonia Policy Focus
7
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