Maximizing financial support for biodiversity in the emerging Kyoto protocol markets

The market mechanisms intended to facilitate lower-cost realization of the Kyoto Protocol’s goals of lowering net emission of greenhouse gases can also help advance the goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity. By acknowledging the ability of carbon sinks, such as forests and soils, to capture and store atmospheric carbon dioxide, and by including these activities in the international emissions trading system, the Kyoto Protocol provides a new source of financial support for enhancement and protection of biological habitat. The magnitude of the global benefits for biodiversity from this mechanism will be significantly enhanced if the credit trading system includes forest regeneration and protection in developing countries and the carbon benefits of management practices that lead to increased storage of carbon in agricultural soils. While the impediments to including these two groups of activities, such as measurement difficulties, need further work to be resolved, they are not qualitatively different from the challenges present in all aspects of monitoring environmental protection programs.