Stabilizing Our Climate by Protecting and Restoring Nature

To prevent irreversible damage to the climate that sustains us, humanity must reduce climate-warming greenhouse gases and remove excess carbon from the atmosphere. But even if the world immediately stopped using fossil fuels, we would fail to avert a disastrous climate scenario unless we also reverse the destruction of ecosystems that absorb and store carbon.

In other words: If we don’t protect and restore nature, we won’t save the climate.

The facts

> 30%

of global action

Protecting nature and restoring some of what has been lost could account for at least 30 percent of all global action needed to stabilize our climate.

Only 3%

of global climate funding

Highly cost-effective climate solutions — such as protecting, restoring and sustainably managing forests — receive less than 3 percent of all global climate funding.

Natural climate solutions are at the heart of Conservation International’s work. These are actions that conserve, restore or improve the use or management of ecosystems while maintaining their capacity to absorb and store carbon from the atmosphere. These solutions also provide a host of additional benefits — filtering fresh water, providing breathable air — that other approaches to climate change don’t offer.

Even better: Nature can do this today — cost-effectively, and at the massive scale required.

Our Work

Our strategy focuses on ensuring that natural ecosystems are worth more alive than dead. Deforestation rates have climbed in recent years — with short-term economic interests outweighing the long-term value of forests. Conservation International’s work aims to replace an extractive economy with a regenerative one through innovation, collaboration and by partnering with Indigenous peoples and local communities.

Working with businesses and governments to minimize deforestation by addressing its largest drivers, particularly agricultural expansion.

Identifying and mapping high-carbon ecosystems such as mangroves, tropical peatlands and old-growth tropical forests that, once lost, are extraordinarily difficult to replace.

Guiding public and private investments to initiatives such as REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), a UN-backed approach to fight climate change by conserving forests.

Developing methods to increase the return on investment in tropical reforestation, making it more attractive for governments and private investors.

Supporting local and Indigenous communities to protect forests on their lands.

Mainstreaming and maximizing nature’s role for achieving climate goals in national and international climate actions.

Principles for Investments in Natural Climate Solutions

Nature is one of the most effective ways to stop climate breakdown, yet natural climate solutions receive less than 3 percent of all global climate funding. Conservation International’s Principles for Investments in Natural Climate Solutions guide our engagement with companies that are helping to protect ecosystems that store climate-warming carbon from the atmosphere.

Read our six principles »

Irrecoverable Carbon

To avoid the catastrophic consequences of climate breakdown, there are certain places that humanity simply cannot afford to destroy. These ecosystems contain more than 260 billion tons of “irrecoverable carbon,” most of which is stored in mangroves, peatlands, old-growth forests and marshes. If released, these vast stores of living carbon would be impossible to recover by the middle of the century, which is when the world needs to reach net-zero emissions to avoid a climate disaster.

Conservation International scientists are leading a team of globally renowned experts to determine where these carbon stocks are, whether they are threatened by human activities and how quickly the stocks could be recovered if lost — creating a global map of irrecoverable carbon in Earth’s ecosystems.

Informed by this pioneering research, Conservation International is undertaking an ambitious initiative to protect 280 million hectares (nearly 700 million acres) of ecosystems — an area larger than Argentina — containing high amounts of irrecoverable carbon by 2030.

In the field

Conservation International is hard at work

Chyulu Hills, Kenya

Conservation International is working to restore tens of thousands of hectares of grasslands in Kenya’s Chyulu Hills, which will protect wildlife, support the livelihoods of the Maasai people and remove carbon from the atmosphere. By scaling this cost-effective approach, degraded shrublands and grasslands could be restored to natural savanna, benefiting people and wildlife, and potentially sequestering billions of tons of carbon dioxide each year.

Alto Mayo, Peru

Conservation International is helping to provide local farmers in Peru’s Alto Mayo Protected Forest with economic alternatives to deforestation, as well as benefits such as agricultural training, improved cookstoves and educational materials. These agreements have been partially funded through carbon credits, a critical tool for reducing deforestation and supporting sustainable development.

Bajo Madidi Municipal Conservation and Management Area, Bolivia

A critical part of Conservation International’s climate strategy is centered around increasing the protection of carbon-rich forests in the Amazon — benefiting nature, climate and communities. With support from Conservation International, the Bolivian municipality of Ixiamas established the 1.5 million-hectare (3.7 million-acre) Bajo Madidi Municipal Conservation and Management Area.

Cispatá, Colombia

Along the northern edge of Colombia’s Caribbean coast, Conservation International is directly preventing the loss of 9,600 hectares (nearly 24,000 acres) of mangrove forests and actively restoring an additional 1,800 hectares (about 4,500 acres). Some mangrove forests store more carbon per unit area than any other ecosystem on Earth while protecting coastal communities from the devastating impacts of climate change, including sea-level rise and severe storms.