@article{12c9aadb64ed4074b0012eb4fc8d454f,
title = "The effectiveness of global protected areas for climate change mitigation",
abstract = "Forests play a critical role in stabilizing Earth{\textquoteright}s climate. Establishing protected areas (PAs) represents one approach to forest conservation, but PAs were rarely created to mitigate climate change. The global impact of PAs on the carbon cycle has not previously been quantified due to a lack of accurate global-scale carbon stock maps. Here we used ~412 million lidar samples from NASA{\textquoteright}s GEDI mission to estimate a total PA aboveground carbon (C) stock of 61.43 Gt (+/− 0.31), 26% of all mapped terrestrial woody C. Of this total, 9.65 + /− 0.88 Gt of additional carbon was attributed to PA status. These higher C stocks are primarily from avoided emissions from deforestation and degradation in PAs compared to unprotected forests. This total is roughly equivalent to one year of annual global fossil fuel emissions. These results underscore the importance of conservation of high biomass forests for avoiding carbon emissions and preserving future sequestration.",
author = "L. Duncanson and M. Liang and V. Leitold and J. Armston and {Krishna Moorthy}, {S. M.} and R. Dubayah and S. Costedoat and Enquist, {B. J.} and L. Fatoyinbo and Goetz, {S. J.} and M. Gonzalez-Roglich and C. Merow and Roehrdanz, {P. R.} and K. Tabor and A. Zvoleff",
note = "Funding Information: The authors gratefully acknowledge the large number of contributors of field and airborne lidar data that enabled the creation of the empirical biomass models that underpinned the biomass products analyzed in this study. We thank the National Science Foundation for funding through awards 2225078 and 2225076 (B.E., C.M., P.R.R) and OAC1934389 (L.D., and S.M.), and also gratefully acknowledge the continued support of the GEDI mission from the NASA Terrestrial Ecology program, and funding from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) grants 80NSSC21K0196 (L.D., M.L., and V.L.), 80NSSC19K0186 and 80NSSC21K0189 (S.G.), and NASA contract NNL 15AA03C (R.D. and J.A.). Additionally, S.C. and P.R. acknowledge the funding support received from Betty and Gordon Moore, and John and Jody Arnhold. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023, The Author(s).",
year = "2023",
month = dec,
doi = "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-38073-9",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "14",
journal = "Nature communications",
issn = "2041-1723",
publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",
number = "1",
}