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Indonesia's forests, which cover 90 million hectares and represent 10 percent of the world's remaining tropical forests, have faced significant loss since 1990. Approximately 28 million hectares, or 25 percent of the country's forests, have been cleared, with an annual loss of about 1.9 million hectares.

The paper advocates for a shift in agricultural research toward marker-assisted and genomics-assisted conventional breeding, particularly for 'orphan crops' like sorghum and millet. It highlights a 69 percent gap between 2006 production and projected 2050 needs, arguing that conventional breeding is superior to genetic modification for complex yield traits. The authors recommend doubling R&D funding in low- and medium-income countries to 1.0 percent of agricultural production value and promoting the sharing of genomic data.

The document argues that public economic incentives are essential to scale up land restoration in Latin America, as the up-front costs are otherwise prohibitive for smallholder farmers and the rural poor. It highlights that land degradation costs the region approximately US $52 billion annually, while restoring a single hectare can add $1,140 in economic value. The brief analyzes programs in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru, calculating payments per tree or hectare to help policymakers optimize these incentives for carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and food security.

The report introduces a quantitative methodology, first developed in 1988, that utilizes a dynamic land-use model to evaluate and compare the carbon sequestration potential of forestry projects. This approach was applied to assess carbon offset projects in Guatemala, Mexico, Nepal, Panama, and Thailand to provide practical guidance for policy-makers and project planners.

The Corporate Ecosystem Services Review (ESR) is a strategic tool developed by the World Resources Institute, the Meridian Institute, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. It provides a five-step methodology for companies to assess how ecosystem degradation—which has seen 15 of 24 evaluated services decline over the last 50 years—affects their bottom line. The ESR identifies five categories of risks and opportunities: operational, regulatory and legal, reputational, market and product, and financing. By 2012, approximately 300 companies had utilized the ESR to move beyond traditional pollution-focused environmental assessments toward a strategy that accounts for ecosystem dependence.

The document argues that conventional landscaping practices in the United States fail to leverage the full range of ecosystem services provided by managed landscapes, such as residential lawns and golf courses. It proposes a conceptual framework to quantify and value seven specific ecosystem services—including carbon sequestration and water retention—to guide design and management decisions.

The document proposes a 'working forest' model for the southern United States, where public entities acquire land or development rights to generate revenue from sustainable timber, recreation, and ecosystem services. This approach is presented as a more cost-effective alternative to traditional conservation programs, with potential for local management via citizen advisory boards and financing through public bonds or taxes.

The policy brief examines the challenges of integrating carbon offsets into a U.S. cap-and-trade system, specifically highlighting the difficulties in quantifying and verifying soil and forest carbon sequestration. It argues that while offsets provide flexibility and cost-containment for capped entities, the high transaction costs and uncertainties associated with certain project types may make them less efficient than alternative regulations or incentive programs. The authors recommend a holistic strategy that evaluates the acceptable level of risk for overstating emission reductions and considers offsets as one part of a broader suite of climate policies.

The document identifies the ecosystem services provided by southern US forests and the drivers threatening them, while introducing five categories of measures—land use instruments, fiscal incentives, liability limitations, market incentives, and education/capacity building—to promote forest conservation.

The briefing argues against the simple extrapolation of financial discount rates to physical carbon flows when assessing the emissions impact of land-use change for biofuels. It proposes distinguishing between the 'project horizon' (cultivation period) and the 'impact horizon' (atmospheric effect period), suggesting the latter be treated as a rolling target. The document further recommends that salvaged carbon from future revegetation be excluded from initial conversion accounting and suggests that if discounting is necessary, a range of values—including zero or negative rates—should be considered.

The document outlines the role of southern U.S. forests in carbon sequestration and the function of forest carbon offsets as a cost-control mechanism for emitters. It identifies four project types—reforestation, afforestation, forest conservation/avoided conversion, and improved forest management—and emphasizes quality criteria such as additionality and permanence. While carbon offset income may not outcompete real estate development, it can help cover incremental costs like property taxes.

The document argues that forests influence climate not only through carbon sequestration but also through biophysical processes—albedo, evapotranspiration, surface roughness, and aerosols—which affect temperature and precipitation. In Chile, the conversion of native vegetation to crops and pastures has been linked to local surface temperature increases of up to 4°C. The authors suggest that Chile can enhance its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), Long-Term Climate Strategy, and REDD+ strategies by incorporating these non-carbon effects as performance indicators and adaptation goals. Specifically, they recommend prioritizing native species over exotic plantations to maximize cooling effects and utilizing the ARClim digital platform to identify areas at risk of non-carbon warming.

The report examines the non-carbon biophysical effects of forests—albedo, evapotranspiration, surface roughness, and aerosols—and their impact on local and global temperatures and precipitation. Using Chile as a case study, it highlights how deforestation of native vegetation, such as the matorral, has contributed to local surface temperature increases. The document proposes specific policy enhancements for Chile, including adjusting its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to favor native species over exotic plantations, expanding the ARClim risk assessment platform, and incorporating biophysical indicators into the National Strategy for Climate Change and Plant Resources (ENCCRV). It suggests that Chile's approach can serve as a model for other UNFCCC parties to recognize deforestation as a climate hazard beyond carbon emissions.

Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR) is presented as a middle ground between waiting for native vegetation to grow and costly tree planting. The strategy aims to reduce implementation costs by 77% and can potentially bring 240 million hectares under restoration worldwide. Implementation involves protecting regenerating plants from fire, fencing off areas, controlling invasive species and insects, and managing cattle. Success requires motivating stakeholders through social and economic benefits and enabling action via rural extension services, sustainable value chains, and political will. The document highlights the restoration of 9.6 million hectares in the Amazon and 794,000 hectares in the Cerrado.

Direct air capture (DAC) involves scrubbing CO2 from ambient air for underground storage or use in products, requiring low-carbon energy to achieve net carbon removal. The document argues that the U.S. could plausibly remove over 1 gigaton of CO2 by midcentury if commercial deployment begins by 2025 with 20–30 percent annual growth. Achieving this requires a dual policy approach: approximately $150 million in annual public funding for R&D and demonstration over the next decade, and amendments to the 45Q tax credit to incentivize private investment, with estimated tax expenditures rising from $360 million per year by 2025 to $1.3 billion by 2030.

The document examines carbon mineralization and enhanced root crops as potential carbon removal strategies. Carbon mineralization, which uses reactive materials to form solid carbonate minerals, could remove 410 MtCO2 per year if one-third of the construction aggregate market shifted to mineralized aggregate. Enhanced root crops, though theoretical, could sequester up to 185 MtCO2 per year across 249 million acres of major U.S. crops. Both technologies face significant research and development hurdles and require sustained federal funding to resolve unknowns regarding scalability, environmental impacts, and commercial viability.

The document highlights that tropical deforestation contributes 50% more to global warming than carbon emissions alone due to biophysical processes like albedo, evapotranspiration, surface roughness, and aerosols. These non-carbon effects cause local temperature spikes and regional rainfall disruptions, leading to direct productivity losses in commodities such as soy and impacting worker safety through heat stress. It calls on companies and financial institutions to move beyond reputational risk management and address these material operational risks through jurisdictional cooperation, improved spatial research, and stricter portfolio alignment.

The Land Accelerator South Asia is a 16-week program launched in 2020 by WRI India to support entrepreneurs developing sustainable business models for the restoration of forests and farmlands in South Asia. The program provides mentorship, grants, and networking opportunities to help restoration businesses scale their environmental and social impacts.

The document highlights India's commitment to restore 26 million hectares of land by 2030 to sequester carbon and support livelihoods. Using the Sidhi District in Madhya Pradesh as a case study, it demonstrates that restoring nearly 75% of the district's land could sequester over 7 million metric tons of carbon and generate significant short-term income and long-term employment for marginalized groups through nature-based solutions.

The document identifies over two billion hectares of global land suitable for restoration, primarily in tropical and temperate regions. It categorizes these opportunities into wide-scale, mosaic, and remote restoration, emphasizing that restoration is a complementary strategy to avoiding deforestation for sequestering carbon and improving ecosystem services.