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Policies that are to have a positive effect on carbon storage
and sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems (both natural and
human-dominated) may aim to ensure that existing land-use
continues – for example through enhanced protection of set-
aside areas that hold significant carbon stores, such as peat-
swamp forests – or they may aim to bring about large-scale
land use change, for example through changing agricultural
practices. Any such policies and their impacts will need to be
considered in the context of other, possibly competing needs
for and uses of land: for food production, as living space, for
maintenance of biodiversity, for recreation and to fulfil aes-
thetic and spiritual demands (Millennium Ecosystem Assess-
ment 2005).
How, then, can people optimise land use and land manage-
ment for a variety of needs? One approach is to maximise
the efficiency of land-use for one overriding purpose – such
as food production or human habitation – in any one place,
thereby leaving more land available for other uses (such as rec-
reation, species conservation or carbon sequestration); another
is to seek multiple uses or benefits from any one piece of land
(Green
et al.
, 2005).
Whichever approach is chosen, trade-offs will almost cer-
tainly be necessary and in any individual case, particular
people or groups of people will attach different priorities
to different kinds of land use. Where there are competing
possible land-uses, conflicts are likely to arise, with a strong
likelihood that there will be different ‘winners’ and ‘losers’,
at least in the short and medium term. Without careful plan-
ning it is likely often to be the poor and disadvantaged who
lose out, for a variety of reasons: they are often highly de-
pendent on local resources, and are not in a position to buy
in substitutes; they generally have less of a voice in decision-
There are competing demands for land use. Any policy that aims to promote ecosystem
carbon management must resolve conflicts between different land uses and take care not
to disadvantage the poor.
LAND COMPETITION AND LIVELIHOOD
ISSUES