In Chinese culture, the number five is generally held to be a lucky number. That’s due in large part to the Wu Xing, or Five Elements: water, wood, metal, earth and fire.

It’s fitting, then, that when we took stock of what the Conservancy accomplished here in China throughout the course of 2011, we were especially proud of five landmark conservation accomplishments. And, as it turns out, we batted for the elemental cycle.

Water
In an unprecedented effort that saw the largest power station in the world alter its practices for ecological purposes, the Conservancy worked with the Three Gorges Dam to restore declining downstream carp populations. By helping to guide the release of excess water, the Conservancy and partners sought to mimic natural river cycles that trigger breeding in local carp species, which have experienced devastating decreases in the last few decades. Early returns suggest that the water release resulted in higher levels of carp spawning, offering a bit of good news along a stretch of the Yangtze in bad need of it.

Wood
Well, there’s about to be much more of it: the Conservancy is leading Sichuan’s largest forest carbon project which will restore more than 40 square kilometers of forest in the province’s southwestern Liangshan region. In 2011 alone, we helped plant 1.2 million trees, and over the next four years we’ll plant a total of 10 million. These reforestation efforts will create jobs for local people, deliver measurable climate change results through accredited carbon credit programs and protect endangered wildlife, including species like the giant panda.

Metal
Speaking of pandas, small metal boxes containing motion-sensor cameras captured incredible images of wild animals in Sichuan Province. And these photos aren’t just revealing the region’s unrivaled richness in wildlife but are also providing invaluable resources for increasing our understanding of the natural world. Located on a parcel of land that will soon become one of China’s first forays into private land conservation, the Conservancy candid cameras photographed over 30 species of birds and mammals, including golden monkeys, takins, leopard cats, golden pheasants and pandas. One of the pandas was even caught eating meat, providing landmark visual evidence of the panda’s omnivorous appetite.

Earth
In even more panda news, the Conservancy and partners developed a new methodology that will allow bamboo reforestation to be classified as a clean development mechanism (CDM) activity. This news comes hot on the heels of China’s first domestic voluntary carbon market called the Panda Standard, and will for the first time allow conservationists to quantify carbon sequestration in bamboo sinks, which are currently ineligible in other carbon accounting methodologies. Bamboo is one of China’s most widely grown and harvested plants, meaning that the Panda Standard could play a huge role in restoring forested landscapes and accelerating China’s carbon economy.

Fire
And we go out with a bang. When the Conservancy celebrated its 60th anniversary in Washington, DC earlier this year, Board of Directors member Jack Ma made an explosive announcement. Ma, one of China’s leading entrepreneurs, announced the China Global Conservation Fund, a new project that will significantly expand the Conservancy’s global reach. The fund is being established by a group of philanthropic Chinese to channel millions of dollars toward high-impact conservation projects around the world. The first project to receive support from the fund will be an initiative to save Kenya’s critically endangered hirola antelope.

And now, as we leave the Year of the Rabbit, these five projects leave us well positioned to expand on our success and enjoy an even more prosperous Year of the Dragon. Good luck and good fortune in 2012.

(Images: Panda eating meat captured by motion sensor cameras stationed on the Motianling County Land Trust Reserve in northern Sichuan. Image credit: TNC. Harvesting bamboo for basket production in Yunnan Province, China. © Ami Vitale.)

1. Some amazing volunteers are caring for stranded pilot whales in Florida. (The New York Times)
2. Another argument in favor of carbon markets–they can help reduce forest fires. (Green Biz)
3. Takeout food in California could get even better, if the styrofoam ban passes. (LA Times)
4. A Belgian high-speed rail line is now also a 2-mile solar tunnel. (YaleE360)
5. New study warns that global warming will disrupt food supplies aross the globe. (Treehugger)

1. The future is carbon capture and sequestration, or “tucking carbon into the ground.” (The New York Times)
2. Why have 7 major companies dropped their support of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative? (Green Biz)
3. In case you missed Obama’s energy speech yesterday, here’s the re-hash. (Treehugger)
4. Demand is up, but supply is down for the Toyota Prius. (LA Times)
5. The best way to reduce your exposure to BPA? Stop eating canned foods. (The Daily Green)

1. The Northeast is the new Artic. Brrrr. (The New York Times)
2. Dow’s collaboration with the Conservancy is “a small step for a company, a giant leap for critters of all kinds,” says Joel Makower. (Green Biz)
3. Cyber-thieves hack the Czech carbon registry and make off with $38 million in carbon credits. (Mongabay)
4. REDD needs to focus on the needs of local people, says a new report. (Conservation Journal Watch)
5. One of Obama’s top climate and energy advisers is stepping down–what impact will her departure have? (Grist)

1. Indoor skiing: Is it really that bad for the environment? (Treehugger)
2. China, Europe and the U.S. black market on an ozone-depleting refrigerant gas…it’s a complicated, but frightening, tale. (YaleE360)
3. We try to steer clear of loaded political questions, but Andy Revkin asks it: does science need more Republicans? (Dot Earth)
4. The dark side of nature and wildlife TV shows comes to light. (Mongabay)
5. This animal is considered the “quintessential example of megafaunal fortitude in the face of really bad weather.” Impressive, heh? (The New York Times)

The impact the humans are having on Earth’s resources depends essentially on three factors; population size, the affluence of this population, and our technological efficiency. This simple equation, laid out by the Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich nearly 40 years ago, makes for pretty scary math in 2010.

In a sobering, post-global-financial-crisis book, Prosperity Without Growth; Economics for a Finite Planet, Tim Jackson uses Ehrlich’s equation to succinctly illustrate the challenges ahead if we are going to live sustainably and equitably on this planet.

Carbon dioxide emissions make a good proxy for the rate at which we are using our planet’s resources. If, as the IPCC is calling for, we aim to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide at 450 parts per million by 2050, this means reducing our total carbon dioxide emissions by at least 4.9% per year between now and 2050.

However, affluence and global population are both growing, and appear very unlikely to do anything else between now and 2050 – what government could deliberately limit the affluence of its citizens? This means that the burden of reducing carbon dioxide emissions must fall on the efficiency with which we use the planet’s resources. Jackson let’s numbers tell the story of what this means:

• In 2006 our technological efficiency was such that globally, for every US dollar spent we emitted on average 770 grams of carbon dioxide.
• According to the UN’s mid-range estimate, the world’s population is expected to increase to 9 billion people by 2050.
• To achieve the necessary emissions reductions, this would mean that by 2050 the efficiency with which we use resources would need to drop from 770 grams to only 40 grams of carbon dioxide per US dollar by 2050.

But this calculation assumes the world remains a very unequal place – developed countries getting steadily richer, China and India getting rapidly richer, and most of the rest of the world remaining crushingly poor. If we are serious about equality and wanted all of those 9 billion people to enjoy prosperity similar to US citizens today, then our efficiency would need to improve to 14 grams of carbon dioxide per US dollar – 55 times more efficient than today.

And this still assumes no income growth in developed nations. If we want an equal world where on average US citizens still get a little richer by 2050, then we must improve efficiency to the point where only a measly 6 grams of carbon dioxide are needed for each US dollar – this is 130 times more efficient than today.

If we dare contemplate population and affluence continuing to grow beyond 2050, well then every dollar of economic activity must actually take carbon out of the atmosphere!

These simple numbers – no more than primary school arithmetic – speak a stark reminder of how we must use our planet’s finite resources a great deal more carefully than we currently are. A sustainable and equitable world means a very different one from that in which we currently live.

(Image: View of the crowded, polluted Sao Paulo cityscape. Sao Paulo is the capital of the state of Sao Paulo in Southeastern Brazil and comprises an area of 588 square miles with a population over 11 million people. Image Credit: ©Scott Warren)

Money, measures and meetings — the troika that dominates discussions around Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), an emerging mechanism designed to conserve tropical forests in a climate-conscious world.

There’s the cost, currently estimated to be $US 30 billion/year. There’s the satellite imagery and statistical sampling that will chart progress. And there are the long, intense negotiations that hope to overcome the challenges of reaching an agreement and maintaining commitments.

Those three factors swirl around REDD+, one of many items up for discussion at the latest UN climate conference now underway in Cancun. They will be discussed in meeting rooms and hallways and they’ll make their way into headlines over the next couple of weeks. Good stuff all around, right? Sure, but if we want real action on a global scale we are going to have to go a bit deeper than just reporting on the words and commitments of delegates and senior level decision-makers. We also have to engage citizens and help them to understand the impacts of deforestation, why it’s taking place and how our actions can have a positive impact, for nature and for ourselves.

Last month in Bangkok, I sat in a small meeting room with 12 environmental journalists from eight countries in Asia-Pacific. Some of the journalists would be traveling to Cancun; others would be glued to their computer monitors covering the negotiations from their offices in Beijing, Hanoi or Manila. Few of them knew much about REDD+, although they knew that it was important.

They know their audiences, how to structure a story, what sort of technical terms to use and what sort of protagonist to feature. But they lack detailed knowledge of the issues, the ways in which different strategies interact and the evidence and nuances to construct a compelling case. Furthermore, they are challenged to make stories resonate with editors who reserve the right to cut an expensive and well-researched feature down to a 200-word sidebar.

This was eye opening for me. Here in Asia-Pacific, a high-stakes region with the greatest ability to have a sustained impact on efforts to reduce global carbon emissions, journalists are struggling to make the issue appealing to their readers, listeners and viewers.

The negotiations in Cancun will provide good copy for journalists. They can play it safe by writing about the money, the measures and the meetings — who said what to whom. It’s good drama: you’ve got villains and victims, powerful countries and fragile ecosystems, the moral imperative and scandalous profit-making.

But the negotiations are not the only — or even most interesting — story around. Tropical forests affect everyone: from the Penan people in Borneo who get their medicine from the leaves of a tree, to the Kreung people in Cambodia who’ve lost their traditional lands, to the profit margins of a timber company to the American family eating a meal at a teak table from a Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified forest in Indonesia.

The media has a role to play in reminding us of this narrative telling accurate, balanced stories that matter for our planet in a way that draws readers in and helps them envision a way out. Programs like the USAID/TNC-led Responsible Asia Forestry and Trade (RAFT) partnership can be valuable resources to journalists in playing this role. In the end, that’s how societal change happens: people connect with issues and demand action to be taken in their names.

(Image: Reporters join a TNC-led field visit to see Reduced Impact Logging using the monocable winch system at Belayan River Timber Concession far from their Jakarta offices, in Berau District on the island of Borneo. Image Credit: Nurni, The Jakarta Post)

When we talk about lowering carbon emissions, we so often focus on reductions in the energy and transportation industries. But it’s important to remember that there are also solutions hiding in our own backyards. And in Australia, we have a very large backyard.

That backyard is the Outback, which covers 80 percent of continental Australia. It has long been a definitive piece of the country’s geography, a core component of Australia’s rugged character. Now, a new report — commissioned by the Pew Environmental Group and The Nature Conservancy and conducted by the Nous Group — tells us that the Outback has a major role to play in fighting climate change.

Terrestrial carbon is a term that refers to the greenhouse gases locked away by the natural process of plant photosynthesis. Data examined by the new report confirms that the Outback sequesters 9.7 billion metric tons of carbon — or, more than 1.5 times the amount of carbon the United States creates in a year. Locking carbon away in ecosystems provides a natural way of lowering carbon emissions. And the good news is we haven’t tapped the full potential of terrestrial carbon in the Outback, where we could store at least an additional billion tons of carbon emissions. Through new measures, we could create a four percent reduction in emissions by 2020. By 2030, that number could be five.

Maximizing that potential could be as simple as expanding a variety of programs that deliver other environmental benefits. These include:

• Preventing indiscriminate land clearing
• Planting more vegetation
• Better managing bushfires through prescribed burns and other preventive tactics
• Eliminating feral pests
• Encouraging sustainable grazing practices

Those programs are all cost-effective, energy-efficient alternatives to some of the larger-scale abatement strategies that have been considered in Australia.

International climate change policy has yet to fully embrace the potential of terrestrial carbon, and one of the major goals of our work in Australia is to establish an accurate and viable terrestrial carbon accounting framework that can help to guide international treaties. Studies like this bring us closer to that goal and help illustrate the enormous benefits of terrestrially sequestered carbon.

There is, however, a downside to having nearly 10 billion tons of carbon in your backyard: the possibility that they could escape. Environmental degradation in the Outback releases that sequestered carbon, which is one reason why the Conservancy is protecting and restoring land in Australia, from the Great Western Woodlands to the massive grasslands of the north.

Terrestrial carbon is only one piece of the climate change adaptation puzzle, but it’s an important piece. And if protecting the Outback for the many people and endangered species that depend on it can also lessen the impacts of climate change—well, then I’d say we’re putting our backyard to good use.

(Image 1: The Eucalyptus forest of Australia’s Gondwana Link region. Though only covering 2 percent of the Australian land mass, the mega-diverse Gondwana Link project area contains an amazing 25 percent of the country’s plant species. Source: Ami Vitale.)

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When it was first brought into the international climate negotiations in 2005, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) was a revelation. By using the power of carbon markets to encourage forest conservation, REDD promised to supply the incentives and support needed to reduce deforestation at a scale sufficient to fight climate change. But when I was recruited by the Conservancy to “figure REDD out,” the gap between the REDD projects already operating and national implementation promoted by climate negotiators was huge.

The sums of money being discussed made communities, governments and corporations take notice. They started to develop pilot programs, design and advocate policy proposals and conduct research.  Over the past five years, this has produced a relatively coherent — albeit rough — roadmap for national REDD+ implementation (the “+” refers to advanced REDD projects that also pay attention to conserving and expanding carbon stocks). That roadmap is based on planning and action at sub-national government levels, which a recent Economist article shows is central to the global dialogue on forests.

I’ve watched this take shape in Indonesia over the past 4 years. The national program, started in 2007 by the Ministry of Forestry, is now driven by the President’s strong commitment. He wants to reduce emissions by 26% compared to business as usual (41% if there is international support), with new institutions established to align multiple ministries and facilitate implementation of an integrated national strategy.

East Kalimantan Province on the island of Borneo is finalizing a strong strategy that outlines a wide range of emission reduction programs and growth opportunities, and the government is designing a new Green Development Agency to drive the provincial strategy forward.

Since 2008, the District of Berau —located within East Kalimantan —has been working together with provincial and national stakeholders, with support from The Nature Conservancy, to develop the Berau Forest Carbon Program (BFCP). This district-wide REDD+ program will protect forests at scale by delivering incentives for sustainable timber harvesting, effective protected areas management and development of a sustainable oil palm sector. It will also ensure benefits go to local residents.

Site-level actions in BFCP will use and refine the tools and approaches developed over the past two decades in Indonesia and elsewhere to achieve sustainability in individual land management units. These are the building blocks that must be brought together under a district-level REDD+ management framework.

These levels are now aligning in a potentially powerful way. BFCP is a key part of the East Kalimantan strategy and East Kalimantan is one of the highest-priority provinces within the national program. The degree of integrated engagement of district, provincial and central governments gives us a rare and important opportunity, and results here will reveal a lot about the potential for REDD+ in Indonesia. It is necessary to identify appropriate roles for the different actors in REDD+ implementation. Regulations and policies need to be actively aligned across scales and old conflicts resolved. A new spatial plan will need to be jointly developed. National and provincial level decision-making—for example on issuance of mining and plantation licenses—has to be better coordinated with the district plans. If these challenges can be effectively addressed in East Kalimantan it could help establish a path for other provinces to follow.

Success is still a long way off, but we have started to connect the dots from disparate site-based projects to the national and international stages. We’ve begun the transition from pilots and draft regulations to a time when national REDD+ programs will operate efficiently and transparently across the globe.

(Image 1: Lex Hovani. Image credit: TNC. Image 2: Aerial view of the forests in the Berau District, East Kalimantan, the island of Borneo, Indonesia. Image credit: TNC)

1. Here are five really great things that cap-and-trade has done for you already.  (CleanTechnica)
2. We might never figure out just how badly wildlife in the Gulf have been affected by the spill.  (Mongabay)
3. So this is weird:  jaguars are into fancy men’s cologne.  (DotEarth)
4. A new study says that population growth and wealth capital might be most significant drivers for the spread of invasive species.  (Treehugger)
5. The US General Services Administration just named its first chief greening officer, which hopefully means greener government buildings in the near future.  (GreenerBuildings)