Biodiversity is a critical component of healthy ecosystems and the services they provide. Human population pressure and the resulting land-use change are significant drivers of climate change. Eighty per cent of the agricultural expansion in the tropics between 1980 and 2000 was at the expense of forests. The resulting global deforestation accounts for biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation and 20% of worldwide CO2 emissions.

Our in-house expertise on biodiversity, ecosystems and the dynamic relations between natural ecosystems and agricultural expansion enables us to develop integral solutions. We see climate change both as a risk and an opportunity. The sustainable management of ecosystems is the key to successful adaptation and mitigation strategies. In serving international and local public and private stakeholders over the past two decades we have built substantial expertise in this area.

Our work pinpoints the following three themes.

We work with governments, civil society and the private sector to improve their technical capacity for REDD+. This will strengthen the position of developing countries during international climate negotiations. One of our most challenging REDD+ assignments is in Surinam, where we developed a carbon monitoring program. We have expertise in baseline assessments, carbon stocks measurement, research into drivers of deforestation, and integrating REDD into policies and land-use plans.

Ecosystems provide a range of economically high value services. The challenge is to organize fair and sustainable payment for these services. We offer expertise on the mapping and valuation of ecosystem services, and the integration of PES into commodity chains, policies and land-use plans.

We apply land use and modeling tools to analyze the impact of socio-economic developments on ecosystems and biodiversity. Our experts have carried out national modeling training schemes in The Netherlands, Thailand, Vietnam, Honduras, and Zambia.