In addition to increased national demand for land due to increased population and consumption patterns, cross-border large-scale land acquisitions have recently taken place in capital-rich but food-poor countries (often oil-rich and water poor countries), such as

Mozambique, Demographic Republic of Congo or Zambia. These transactions, sometimes referred to as ‘the rush for Africa’s land’ or a ‘land grab’, are receiving increased attention from researchers, institutions and the media (Lambin and Meyfroidt 2011; World Bank 2011). Our results further show that implementation of a narrowly focussed REDD + mechanism could result in unintended eFT-508 cost perverse land-cover change and carbon leakage. Similarly, potentially harmful side effects for some selleck chemicals llc biodiversity areas have been reported (Miles and Kapos 2008; Strassburg et al. 2010). Our REDD scenarios illustrate a critical argument for the ongoing discussion within the UNFCCC: if REDD + does not include, or is not complemented by, initiatives to reduce the need for conversion of additional natural ecosystems, the effectiveness of REDD + on climate change mitigation will be significantly compromised. Our results show that 96 % of forested land in developing

countries is characterised by a medium, SAHA HDAC price high or very high likelihood of conversion, and many biodiversity hotspots in Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia present likelihood

Olopatadine of further conversion. Our BAU scenario also suggests that forests will have three times higher conversion rates than other ecosystems, therefore suggesting that forests are indeed the first priority for policies addressing land-use and land-cover change. However, our results also show that if no measures to reduce demand for land are implemented, the net mitigation impact of REDD (whether 100 or 50 % effective) can be reduced significantly by emissions arising from land-use and land-cover change “forced” into non-forested land, or “cross-biome leakage”. This might be a conservative estimate, as it ignores the likely greater land requirements given the lower agricultural yield potential of some of these alternative ecosystems. Similarly, Galford et al. (2010) investigated greenhouse gas emissions from alternative futures of deforestation and agricultural management in the southern Amazon and concluded a need for taking into account post-clearing emissions and a need for of an integrated assessment of land-cover changes. In agreement with others (e.g. Galford et al. 2010) we also highlight, however, that avoided deforestation remains an important strategy for minimising future greenhouse emissions and that REDD + mitigation impacts are substantial, particularly where land-cover change is avoided on tropical forest peatlands.