Nature Conservancy, US

Protected areas play a major role in reducing climate changing carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. Fifteen percent of the world’s terrestrial carbon stock - 312 gigatonnes - are stored in protected areas around the world. Protected areas also serve as natural buffers against climate impacts and other disasters, providing space for floodwaters to disperse, stabilizing soil against landslides and blocking storm surges.

This Poverty Environment Partnership (PEP) report is dedicated to the increasingly popular topic of 'Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation' (REDD). Making REDD Work for the Poor outlines how the design of REDD could infuence its poverty implications and the key requirements for ensuring that REDD works for the poor.

All people, regardless of where they live, depend upon the existence of healthy marine ecosystems. While the role that Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) can play in promoting the health of the oceans and seas has been widely acknowledged, progress on building a network of MPAs has been slow to date. This can be in part explained by the fact that MPAs involve a host of issues that go much further than conservation alone.

Seagrasses are flowering plants that thrive in shallow oceanic and estuarine waters around the world. Although there are only about 60 species of seagrasses worldwide, these plants play an important role in many shallow, near-shore, marine ecosystems. There is growing evidence that seagrasses are declining globally because of anthropogenic impacts. This paper presents an overview of seagrasses, the impacts of climate change, and other threats to seagrass habitats.

The Conservation Finance Guide presents a host of potential financing opportunities for nature conservation in general, with a special focus on protected area management. Many of these finance mechanisms rely on a "market-based" approach, valuing and marketing the goods and services that a protected area generates in support of local livelihoods and the broader economy.

Building resilience into mangrove conservation plans requires an understanding of how mangroves will respond to climate changes, what factors help them survive these changes, and, consequently, which mangroves are most likely to survive these changes. This publication provides a welcome reference for all stakeholders in mangroves, especially coastal communities, to assist them in encouraging decision makers to apply resilience principles in all development and conservation programmes.