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. 2022 May 31;119(22):e2120426119.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.2120426119. Epub 2022 May 25.

Financing conservation by valuing carbon services produced by wild animals

Fabio Berzaghi  1 , Ralph Chami  2 , Thomas Cosimano  3 , Connel Fullenkamp  4
Affiliations

Financing conservation by valuing carbon services produced by wild animals

Fabio Berzaghi et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

Filling the global biodiversity financing gap will require significant investments from financial markets, which demand credible valuations of ecosystem services and natural capital. However, current valuation approaches discourage investment in conservation because their results cannot be verified using market-determined prices. Here, we bridge the gap between finance and conservation by valuing only wild animals’ carbon services for which market prices exist. By projecting the future path of carbon service production using a spatially explicit demographic model, we place a credible value on the carbon capture services produced by African forest elephants. If elephants were protected, their services would be worth $20.8 billion ($10.3 to $29.7 billion) and $25.9 billion ($12.8 to $37.6 billion) for the next 10 and 30 y, respectively, and could finance antipoaching and conservation programs. Elephant population growth would generate a carbon sink of 109 MtC (64 to 153) across tropical Africa in the next 30 y. Avoided elephant extinction would also prevent the loss of 93 MtC (46 to 130), which is the contribution of the remaining populations. Uncertainties in our projections are controlled mainly by forest regeneration rates and poaching intensity, which indicate that conservation can actively reduce uncertainty for increased financial and biodiversity benefits. Our methodology can also place lower bounds on the social cost of nature degradation. Poaching would result in $2 to $7 billion of lost carbon services within the next 10 to 30 y, suggesting that the benefits of protecting elephants far outweigh the costs. Our methodology enables the integration of animal services into global financial markets with major implications for conservation, local socioeconomies, and conservation.

Keywords: climate change; ecosystem services; financial economics; megafauna; nature-based solutions.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Carbon capture value (carbon price $51.6/tCO2) and stored carbon due to forest elephant activity in 30 y. (A) Diamonds represent PAs not present in the World Database on Protected Areas. The extent of some PAs does not fully match with elephant habitat (Materials and Methods). The PA “Rest of Gabon” is not displayed as it covers ∼54% of the country (value $11.8 billion). (B) Total value of elephant carbon service and (C) per kilometer squared value (ratio of total value to total extent of PAs). (D) Loss of value caused by depressed population growth (50% of natural growth rate) under the medium-protection scenario. (E) Sum of carbon stored across all PAs within each country.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Value of forest elephant services in African countries under different conservation scenarios at a carbon price of $51.6/tCO2. Present values are the cumulative sum of yearly carbon service in PAs over an investment horizon of 30 y and include the contribution of present and future generations of elephants. Insets show the total cumulative present value of carbon services within the first 30 y (Upper Right Inset) and first 10 y (Lower Left Inset) for all countries. Box plot upper and lower bounds show the uncertainty associated with the forest regeneration rate, the contribution of elephants to AGC accumulation, conservation scenarios, and elephant population growth (Materials and Methods). The numbers inside the bars show the difference in billions of dollars compared with the high-protection conservation scenario.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Carbon value and carbon sink potential attained by countries within the first 30 y under the “high-protection” scenario, in which elephant populations grow at their natural rate. The percentage represents the fraction of (A) value or (B) AGC stored under no poaching compared with the value attainable in 100 y if elephant populations quadrupled compared with today.
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