The Biodiversity Credit project, “Biodiversity Credits: Incentives to Promote Biodiversity-Friendly Land Uses,” is spearheaded by Dr. Florencia Montagnini, a Senior Research Scientist at The Forest School within the Yale School of the Environment
The project aims to address knowledge gaps surrounding biodiversity, particularly in understanding available resources and required financing for conservation efforts. Biodiversity-friendly land use practices, such as agroforestry systems (AFS), can function as biodiversity islands within human-dominated landscapes. They can also balance ecosystem productivity and conservation, and play important roles in mitigating or reversing detrimental, human-induced effects on landscapes. Financial incentives are essential to promote integrated land use systems such as AFS to bolster their biodiversity and ecological contributions.
This project hypothesizes that biodiversity credits can become an additional incentive to favor biodiversity-friendly land use options. Despite challenges in monitoring biodiversity within heterogeneous systems like AFS, appropriate metrics can be found, as it has been done successfully with Payments for Environmental Services.
Our research focuses on exploring the potential of biodiversity credits as an alternative financing mechanism for biodiversity-friendly land use options, particularly AFS. We are examining methods for measuring biodiversity metrics and assessing biodiversity value in smallholder farms across Latin America, including Argentina, Brazil, and Ecuador. Recommendations for promoting specific financing instruments will be tailored to the cultural and other characteristics of the target populations. Additionally, we are collaborating with academic institutions, NGOs, and private sectors in each country to identify markets for biodiversity credits.
