CoForTips: Congo basin Forests, Tipping points for biodiversity conservation and resilience of forested social and ecological systems

The loss of rainforest is an emerging issue in the Congo Basin (cf. Scholes and Biggs, 2010). The forests of the Congo Basin have been classified as globally outstanding for their biodiversity. They shelter an exceptional diversity of flora and fauna and provide critical ecosystem services [1] including carbon storage and climate regulation. They support the livelihood of vulnerable communities and until now, the level of threat on biodiversity was low compared to other eco-regions in Africa (Burgess et al., 2006).

However, Leadley et al. (2010) have proposed projections of global change impacts on biodiversity (biodiversity scenarios) over the 21st century for 11 biomes, including West Africa and the Miombo woodlands. The authors modeled large scale conversion of forests to other uses (agriculture and mining) driven by population increase, globalization and increased access, with detrimental impacts on biodiversity and associated ecosystems. These scenarios suggest that the forests of the Congo basin would find themselves under considerable pressure on both ends of their area of distribution.

The purpose of CoForTips is to foster better management of the Congo Basin forests through (i) a better understanding of the dynamics and, regime shifts of biodiversity and linkages between social and ecological systems and (ii) the construction of scenarios of biodiversity, exploring possible futures for the forests and people of the region. The scenarios will explicitly address different management and policy options. CoForTips has three research objectives:

• Identifying tipping points in the Forests of the Congo Basin SES, mapping biodiversity resilience, identifying stable states and tipping points.
• Constructing Scenarios of Biodiversity, integrating social, economic, governance, ecological and geophysical processes in a platform able to simulate regional trajectories.
• Fostering Resilience, embedding the results of our research in the decision making process at the regional and national levels, through well-defined impact pathways involving policy makers and the civil society.

This project will build upon the outputs of earlier and on-going projects in the area and work under the umbrella of the Commission of Central African Forests (COMIFAC). CIRAD is involved in the project ‘Consolidating the Observatory for the Forests of Central Africa’ (CEOFAC), which has been committed by the Congo Basin Forest Partnership and COMIFAC to predicting socio-economic change in the Congo Basin until 2050, and aims at providing reliable information on forest resources to decision-makers in the Congo Basin. We will build on the results of the CoforChange project (BIODIVERSA 2008), which described the dynamics of biodiversity in response to different climatic and anthropogenic change scenarios; and also on the ‘Prospective study of the forests of central Africa by 2040’ that identifies the drivers of change for the forests of the region.

Our results will be of interest to the regional partners but also to the European Union, as European countries 1) are net consumers of African tropical timber, 2) own most of the logging companies in the region, 3) are highly concerned by the capacity of TMF to serve as carbon sinks, 4) strive to uplift the living standards of marginal communities (Lisbon Declaration of the EU-Africa Summit), and 5) want to contribute to biodiversity conservation (Working Program on Forest Biological Diversity).

By adopting a participatory, cross-sector and multidisciplinary approach, we will ensure our results and scenarios are embedded in the policy making process, paying close attention to the governance structure. We will enroll key stakeholders and leaders at every step of the project and secure a clear and direct communication of the research results among the involved stakeholders, closing the gap between knowledge production and action.

[1] For the definitions we refer to the framework of the Program on Ecosystem Change and Society: external page http://www.icsu.org/what-we-do/interdisciplinary-bodies/pecs

Keywords

Resilience of forested social ecological systems; prospective models of biodiversity dynamics; climate change scenarios; forest transition theory; participatory prospective analysis; institution building; interactions between multiscale systems; land allocation policies; social vulnerability; biofuel expansion; mining; REDD+.

Partners

Funded partners

• CIRAD, Centre de Coopération Internationale pour le Développement (France)
• IRD, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (France)
• Université de Liège, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech (Belgium)
• IIASA, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Austria)

Local partners

• INDEFOR (Equatorial Guinea),
• IRET, Institut de Recherche en Ecologie Tropicale (Gabon),
• IRAD (Cameroon),
• University of Douala (Cameroon),
• University Marien Ngouabi (Republic of Congo),
• University of Bangui (Central African Republic)
• ERAIFT (Democratic Republic of Congo)

Self-funded or sub-contracted partners

• EDF, Electricité De France (France),
• University of Montpellier 2 (France),
• Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris (France),
• University of Rennes (France),
• University of Barcelona (Spain),
• ETH Zürich (Switzerland)

Duration of the project

CoForTips is a 3 years project, starting January 1st, 2013.

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