New study finds top 4 forest-based solutions have robust scientific foundations

A new peer-reviewed Nature study by 27 researchers across 11 institutions including the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), The Nature Conservancy and Columbia University, has backed the forest carbon credits' scientific credentials: out of all the world’s nature-based climate solutions, the paper found that the four leading forest-based solutions - (1) tropical forest conservation, (2) temperate forest conservation, (3) tropical forest reforestation and (4) temperate forest reforestation - have robust scientific foundations and offer the greatest certainty in carbon mitigation potential.

“In tropical forests, there have been complaints about whether those projects are doing what they purport to do – but that is an implementation challenge,” says Brian Buma, senior climate scientist at EDF and a co-author of the report. “For forests, we have a pretty good scientific basis and our methods just get better and more complementary. We have a lot of ways of measuring the carbon in forests and the associated fluxes. It is much harder to do in things like soil, for example.”

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01960-0/figures/1

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