The Effectiveness of Global Protected Areas for Climate Change Mitigation

Abstract Forests play a critical role in stabilizing Earth’s climate. Establishing Protected Areas (PAs) represents one approach to forest conservation, but PAs were rarely created to mitigate climate change. The global impact of PAs on the carbon cycle, through avoided emissions and/or enhanced growth, has not previously been quantified due to a lack of accurate global carbon stock maps. Here we used ~412 million lidar samples from NASA’s GEDI mission to estimate a total of 19.7 +/- 1.8 Gt of additional Aboveground Biomass (AGB) associated with PA status. These higher C stocks are primarily attributed to avoided emissions, and are roughly equivalent to annual global fossil fuel emissions. The total measured PA AGB was 125.3 Gt (+/- 0.63), 26% of all mapped terrestrial woody AGB. These results underscore the importance of conservation of high integrity1, high biomass forests for avoiding carbon emissions and preserving future sequestration.