CHOICE 4

Land-use changes account for approximately 10% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Tropical forest ecosystems can contribute to both pillars of addressing climate change—namely, mitigation and adaptation:

-Tropical forests and plantations are significant potential carbon sinks; their biomass can provide energy as a substitute for fossil fuels, while reducing deforestation and forest degradation and improving forest management (REDD+) can significantly reduce anthropogenic GHG emissions

-The ability of human societies—which are still predominantly rural—to adapt to climate change depends in part on the state of available natural resources, while the necessary adaptation of tropical ecosystems to climate change can be facilitated by human interventions.

As part of the implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, mechanisms such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and REDD+, along with voluntary markets and ecosystem-based adaptation, provide new opportunities for tropical forestry, as well as a potential lever for the protection or restoration of tropical forests. This module provides an understanding of the basic concepts of climate change, the role of tropical ecosystems in the global carbon cycle, and the technical, political, and economic responses to the challenges of climate change.

Module Content:

This module provides basic knowledge on topics such as the carbon cycle, the mechanisms and consequences of climate change, and the technical and policy measures for mitigating and adapting to climate change. The potential of tropical agroecosystems is assessed based on scientific studies and existing operational projects.

Teaching and Learning Methods:

-Course (18 hours)

-Tutorial (3 hours).

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This course introduces concepts of plant architecture and the development of the entire plant (stem and root) as part of an assessment of tree health and function, with a view to implementing management practices tailored to specific objectives. The assessment and management of trees are guided by different criteria depending on the context (forest, orchard, or urban). The following topics will be covered both theoretically and practically, with hands-on exercises. (1) Overview of morphology and concepts of whole-plant architecture, (2) Tree life cycles and growth stages, (3) Stressors (competition, pruning, pests and diseases) and architectural responses, (4) Hands-on exercises in assessing forest, fruit, and urban trees.

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The objectives of this learning unit are to explore key concepts related to climate change, to illustrate important concepts in ecology and evolution in the context of climate change across a wide range of ecosystems, and to synthesize the various scientific and societal issues and challenges posed by climate change.

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"Businesses play a central role today in the processes leading to ecosystem degradation, and as such are increasingly called upon to contribute to their protection. How, then, can we improve businesses’ consideration of biodiversity issues and their involvement in the localized management of ecosystems? Furthermore, while conservation science and ecology offer a growing number of indicators and data to assess biodiversity in its many forms, how should this information be structured so that it provides a basis for strategic and collective action and for dialogue among stakeholders?"

An approach based on ecological accounting as a discipline within management sciences allows us to address these issues regarding the structuring of ecological indicators and information systems, the assumption of responsibility by the various actors who interact with ecosystems, and the associated forms of accountability.

The field of ecological accounting and its recent developments regarding biodiversity aim to transform the accounting systems traditionally used by firms to better account for the value of natural capital (biodiversity, ecosystems), thereby embedding it at the heart of management processes at various levels of corporate governance. Innovation in ecological accounting also exists at other levels (national, ecosystem-wide) and can thus help create linkages across different scales of ecosystem governance.

Interactive lectures are interspersed with exercises of varying lengths that engage students actively:

- reading and lively discussion of scientific articles in the field;

- a tool for the comparative analysis of natural capital accounting tools and models, etc.

-A tutorial on applying ecosystem accounting approaches based on a case study "

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