Biodiversity for REDD+

The Mountain Partnership Secretariat works to support mountain communities and ecosystems worldwide, including the conservation of tropical forest landscapes critical to climate stability and local livelihoods. The Biodiversity for REDD+ initiative built a bridge between climate action and conservation science. It addressed the need to integrate biodiversity indicators in forest inventories and value chain development plans by developing cost-effective methodologies.

The aim was to assess the trade-offs between protecting biodiversity and reducing emissions, as well as reducing the risk of unsustainable use of forest resources — which undermines the resilience of forests and their capacity to provide the goods and services that humans require.

The Mountain Partnership Secretariat supported Papua New Guinea's Forest Authority to integrate the National Forest Inventory (NFI) design with an appropriate methodology to assess forest biodiversity at national scale.

With the initiative's support, Papua New Guinea developed its first multi-purpose National Forest Inventory under the arrangements for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), within the framework of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change.

The initiative not only informed  Papua New Guinea's national policy but also fostered a new generation of experts who have been instrumental in developing sound government policies to sustainably manage the nation's biodiverse forest heritage, on which most of the population depends for its livelihoods and food. The data produced by Papua New Guinea's NFI confirmed that protecting ecosystem resilience is both cost-effective and vital for long-term carbon sequestration.

Building on the outcomes of this project, the Mountain Partnership Secretariat launched a follow-up initiative in collaboration with Monash University (Melbourne, Australia) and Sapienza University of Rome (Italy). The initiative expanded across Melanesia, encompassing Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Recognizing that the region's endemic flora is essential for both climate stability and local livelihoods, the initiative addressed critical data gaps regarding indigenous food and medicinal plants. It produced a comprehensive bibliographic dataset and a strategic assessment of commercially viable species. Using a custom multi-criteria scoring algorithm, the team identified 20 priority species per country, creating a roadmap for sustainable value chain development that safeguards biodiversity while enhancing regional food security and economic resilience.