Carbon markets alone won’t keep Southeast Asia’s forests standing, study says

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🗞️ Driving the news: A new study published in Nature Communications finds that carbon markets alone are unlikely to provide enough financial incentive to protect Southeast Asia’s remaining forests inside commercial concessions
• Researchers identified around 42 million hectares of intact forest located within logging, oil palm, timber and rubber plantation concessions across Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Myanmar, representing a major but overlooked conservation opportunity

🔭 The context: The study examined more than 3,700 concessions using satellite data to assess the economics of shifting from forest exploitation to conservation
• Researchers argue that relying solely on carbon markets will not deliver conservation at the required scale
• Instead, forest protection will require a combination of blended finance, green bonds, payments for ecosystem services and biodiversity credits

🌍 Why it matters for the planet: Southeast Asia’s forests are critical carbon sinks and biodiversity hotspots, but continue to face pressure from agriculture, logging and plantation expansion
• Protecting forests inside existing production landscapes could prevent significant emissions
• The study estimates that losing these forests could release around 1.2 gigatonnes of CO₂ over the next three decades, equivalent to roughly 20% of industrial carbon emissions from ASEAN countries between 2000 and 2023

⏭️ What’s next: Researchers are calling for governments to reform concession rules that currently require commercial activity and can discourage landholders from conserving forests.
• A successful transition may require both new financing mechanisms and regulatory changes that allow companies to generate value from protecting ecosystems rather than clearing them

💬 One quote: “Carbon finance has an important role to play, but it will not be sufficient on its own to protect all remaining forests in concessions.” — Yiwen Zeng, Nanyang Technological University

📈 One stat: Around 42 million hectares of intact forest remain inside Southeast Asian commercial concessions, an area larger than Malaysia

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