Heal our planet: Protecting nature for climate

Editor’s note: “Heal our planet, protect our future”: six words driving a global movement to protect nature. Conservation International and our supporters are meeting the moment in an ambitious new campaign. In recognition of this campaign, Conservation News is spotlighting some of our stories and successes from around the world. Click here to make a gift and support this critical work.

For years, Conservation International has sounded an urgent call to humanity: We can’t prevent the worst impacts of climate change if we don’t protect nature. With climate tipping points closer than ever before, we must work swiftly to secure
a sustainable future for us all. 

To that end, Conservation International is moving faster than ever before, partnering with countries, companies and communities to expand natural climate solutions at a larger scale. In the past year, we’ve made remarkable progress. Here are some highlights.

For climate-fighting farms, squeeze in some trees

Planting crops and grazing livestock often means cutting down trees. But are forests and farms really at odds? A groundbreaking study published last year by Conservation International says no. In fact, researchers found, farmland worldwide could stash
away as much planet-warming carbon as the global emissions of all cars combined — just by adding some trees.

Read more here.

© Tory Read

A farm using agroforestry practices in Indonesia.

In Bolivia, a ‘conservation mosaic’ gets another (big) piece

Last year, in the remote lowland forests of northwestern Bolivia, a small town took a big step to protect one of the Amazon’s most biodiverse regions. With support from Conservation International, the municipality of Sena has legally protected
450,000 hectares (1.1 million acres) of Amazon rainforest — the most recent piece in a massive, interconnected “conservation mosaic” created largely by local municipalities and Indigenous communities that are taking forest protection
into their own hands. In the past 25 years, Bolivian towns have protected 10 million contiguous hectares (25 million acres) of the Amazon — an area nearly the size of Iceland.

Read more here.

© Gabriela Villanueva

“Piece by piece, we are knitting together the fabric of conservation in the Amazon,” said Conservation International-Bolivia Vice President Eduardo Forno.

Race is on to revive Earth’s ‘third pole’

The Eastern Himalayas — home to 12 percent of the world’s biodiversity and 1 billion people — is one of the fastest-warming places on
Earth due to climate change. As glaciers recede and monsoon seasons shift, some rivers are drying up while others face more frequent and severe floods,
all while the region’s forests continue to be chipped away. For the people who live in and around the world’s “third pole” — so-called because of the vast amount of ice stored in these mountains — these recent
changes threaten farms, fisheries and access to clean water. Against this backdrop comes “Mountains to Mangroves,” a massive initiative led by Conservation International to accelerate conservation across some of the most rugged and
mountainous regions on Earth.

Find out more here.

© Abhimanu Chehri

Mist shrouds the mountains of West Bengal, India.

Bruno Vander Velde is the managing director of storytelling at Conservation International. Want to read more stories like this? Sign up for email updates. Also, please consider supporting our critical work.