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Study: Islands of Southeast Asia Indispensable for Climate Stability
The islands contain Earth’s rare “irrecoverable carbon” stores
Arlington, VA (November 18, 2021) – The mangroves, peatlands and forests of Southeast Asia areessential for global climate stability, according to new research out today from Conservation
International that maps the places on Earth that humanity must protect to avoid a climate catastrophe.
These ecosystems contain what researchers call “irrecoverable carbon,” dense stores of carbon that, ifreleased due to human activity, could not be recovered in time for the world to prevent the mostdangerous impacts of climate change.
The new worldwide map, published today in the journal Nature Sustainability, builds on a landmark
study that introduced the concept of irrecoverable carbon. The research finds that half of Earth’s
irrecoverable carbon is highly concentrated on just 3.3% of land – primarily old-growth forests,
peatlands and mangroves, all of which are found on the islands of Southeast Asia. Globally, these vast
reserves of carbon are equivalent to 15 times the global fossil fuel emissions released last year.
According to the study, key ecosystems across Southeast Asian islands collectively contain 13.1 Gt ofirrecoverable carbon – equivalent to 1.5 years of global fossil fuel emissions – and have some of thehighest concentrations of irrecoverable carbon worldwide. New Guinea alone contains 7.3 billion metrictons of irrecoverable carbon – 5% of the world’s total.
Researchers say that knowing which ecosystems contain the greatest irrecoverable carbon stores canhelp governments focus global efforts to protect 30% of land by 2030. Targeted conservation would
yield big gains – protecting just 5.4% of lands high in irrecoverable carbon, in addition to the amountcurrently within protected areas, would keep 75% percent of Earth’s irrecoverable carbon from being
released into the atmosphere, researchers found.
“Knowing that irrecoverable carbon is concentrated in this region’s trees and soil can help guide theprotection of these ecosystems we now know are essential for Earth’s climate” said Monica Noon, aConservation International scientist and the study’s lead author. “These islands house nearly 9% of all
the irrecoverable carbon on Earth. We are at a pivotal moment for climate action – the science and thesolutions are here, and we know that areas like this are essential for global climate stability.”
New Guinea, consisting of Papua New Guinea in the east and the Indonesian provinces of Papua andWest Papua in the west, is home to some of the most expansive carbon-rich mangroves, largest intact
tropical peatlands and densest rainforests on Earth. To the island’s northwest, Borneo also contains
lowland and montane rainforests, mangroves and tropical peatlands that house dense irrecoverable
carbon. The stores are spread across the island – which consists of the Malaysian states of Sabah andSarawak, the Indonesian province of Kalimantan, and the tiny nation of Brunei – with primary forestsand peat swamps also spanning Malaysia’s peninsular mainland.

An accompanying report, also released today, reveals that many of these irrecoverable carbon areas
overlap with places containing high concentrations of biodiversity – meaning that protecting lands
essential for climate stability would also conserve habitats for thousands of mammal, bird, amphibianand reptile species. New Guinea, for example, is a designated High Biodiversity Wilderness Area with
17,000 plant species and 650 birds living alongside the island’s 7.3 billion metric tons of irrecoverable
carbon. The paper calls for the creation of “irrecoverable carbon reserves,” new, area-based
conservation measures designed to ensure irrecoverable carbon remains in these critical ecosystems.
According to the Nature Sustainability study, the largest and highest-density irrecoverable carbon
ecosystems, in addition to the islands of Southeast Asia, include••••The tropical forests and peatlands of the Amazon biome (31.5 Gigatonnes irrecoverable carbon);
The Congo Basin (8.2 Gigatonnes);
The temperate forests of northwestern North America (5.0 Gigatonnes);
Mangroves, seagrasses and tidal wetlands globally (4.8 Gigatonnes).

The study also details how vulnerable irrecoverable carbon areas are to human activity and climatechange – and how much irrecoverable carbon is stored within Indigenous and protected lands. These
key findings include•••Tropical ecosystems like those found throughout Southeast Asia comprise most of the “doublyirreplaceable” land on Earth, making them high priority for both biodiversity conservation andclimate change mitigation
More than a third of irrecoverable carbon (46.7 billion Gigatonnes) is stored within thegovernment-recognized lands of Indigenous peoples and local communities;
Across ecosystems, the highest concentrations of irrecoverable carbon are found in mangroves(218 tonnes per hectare, on average), tropical peatlands (193 t/ha) and boreal wetlands (173t/ha).

An appendix is attached to this release with irrecoverable carbon breakdowns by country, continent andecosystem.
“The consequences of releasing this stored carbon would stretch on for generations, undermining ourlast chance to stabilize Earth’s climate at tolerable levels for nature and humanity,” said JohanRockström, Conservation International chief scientist and co-director of the Potsdam Institute for
Climate Impact Research, a leader in climate and sustainability research. “We must act now to safeguard
the planet’s ability to serve as a carbon sink, which includes prioritizing these unique ecosystems.”
In the last decade alone, agriculture, logging and wildfires have released at least 4 gigatonnes ofirrecoverable carbon, equal to 5% of human-caused fossil fuel emissions over that time, the study
reveals. Threats to irrecoverable carbon vary by ecosystem and location, researchers noted, but themost imminent and widespread risks come from legal rollbacks to protected areas that shrink oreliminate existing protections, land use changes for agriculture or development or climate-changedriven events such as forest fires or extreme weather.

“We have less than 10 years to cut emissions in half and prevent our climate and biodiversity fromreaching an irreversible tipping point,” said Allie Goldstein, a co-author on the study and Conservation
International’s director of climate protection. “The good news is that we haven’t yet reached thatthreshold. This is a rare scenario in which we have the time and information needed to prevent
environmental disaster before it happens. Our research shows that investing in irrecoverable carbon
reserves is a win-win-win approach that can improve the health of our climate, the health of Earth’s
species and, ultimately, the health of humanity.”
Susan Cook-Patton, a coauthor of the paper and senior forest restoration scientist with The Nature
Conservancy said that, “given the strengthened commitments that need to come out of the Glasgow
UNFCCC COP this year, this global map represents a valuable addition to the science toolkit for climate
policymakers. It is especially critical that governments fast-track protection of irrecoverable carbon
stores that are at imminent threat of irreparable damage. This map can help find those locations before
it’s too late.”
To secure the benefits of irrecoverable carbon, the study’s authors recommend•••••

Supporting Indigenous peoples and communities, who manage more than a third of Earth’s
irrecoverable carbon but face increasing threats to their lands;
Immediately reversing policies and practices that threaten Earth’s last remaining irrecoverable
carbon reserves;
Expanding the area of irrecoverable-carbon lands under conservation, through protected areas
as well as Indigenous and community-led conservation measures;
Prioritizing areas with high concentrations of irrecoverable carbon in strategies from national
governments and multilateral funders such as the Global Environmental Facility, Green Climate
Fund and World Bank;
Designing comprehensive and collaborative land use planning practices that promotesustainable development and climate change resilience, such as fire and pest management andprotecting coastal and freshwater wetlands to reduce flooding and storm surges.

To read the entire study authored by scientists from Conservation International, The NatureConservancy, Wildlife Conservation Society, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison, click here.
For additional information and to view some of the study’s maps, visit the irrecoverable carbon landing
page here.
###About Conservation International
Conservation International works to protect the critical benefits that nature provides to people. Throughscience, partnerships and fieldwork, Conservation International is driving innovation and investments innature-based solutions to the climate crisis, supporting protections for critical habitats, and fostering
economic development that is grounded in the conservation of nature. Conservation International
works in 30 countries around the world, empowering societies at all levels to create a cleaner, healthierand more sustainable planet. Follow Conservation International's work on Conservation
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