CHOIX4

Land-use changes are responsible for around 10% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Tropical forest ecosystems can play a part in both the mitigation and adaptation aspects of global warming:

-Tropical forests and plantations are important potential carbon sinks, and their biomass can provide energy to replace fossil fuels, while reducing deforestation and forest degradation and improving forest management (REDD+) can significantly reduce anthropogenic GHG emissions.

-The ability of human societies, still essentially 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 intervention.

In the context of the implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, mechanisms such as the Sustainable Development Mechanism (SDM) and REDD+, and voluntary markets, as well as ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change, provide a new outlet for tropical forestry, as well as a potential lever for tropical forest protection or restoration. The 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 political mechanisms for mitigating and adapting to this change. The potential of tropical agroecosystems is assessed on the basis of scientific studies and existing operational projects.

Teaching and learning methods :

-Course (18 hours)

-TD (3 hours).

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This course introduces the concepts of plant architecture and whole-plant development (stem and root) as part of a diagnosis of the condition of trees and their functioning, with a view to management adapted to objectives. The consideration and management of trees responds to different criteria depending on the contexts considered (forest, fruit or urban). The following topics will be covered both theoretically and practically, using real-life situations. (1) General information on the morphology and architecture of the whole plant, (2) Tree life trajectories, forms of expectation (3) Trauma (competition, pruning, bio-aggressors) and architectural reactivity (4) Practical work on diagnosing forest, fruit and urban trees.

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The aim of this course is to deepen understanding of key concepts relating to climate change, to illustrate important concepts in ecology and evolution in the light of climate change, in many different ecosystems, and to produce a synthesis of the various scientific and societal questions and issues raised by CC.

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"Today, companies play a central role in the dynamics of ecosystem degradation, and are therefore increasingly called upon to contribute to their protection. How, then, can we improve the way in which companies take account of biodiversity issues, and involve them in localized ecosystem management? In addition, while conservation science and ecology offer a growing number of indicators and data for assessing biodiversity in its many forms, how can we structure this information so that it provides a basis for strategic and collective action, and for dialogue between stakeholders?

An ecological accounting approach, as a management science discipline, enables us to address these issues of structuring ecological indicators and information systems, the responsibilities of the various players who interact with ecosystems, and the associated forms of accountability.

The field of ecological accounting and its recent developments on biodiversity aim to transform the accounting systems traditionally used by companies to better take into account the value of natural capital (biodiversity, ecosystems), and thus anchor it at the heart of management processes at different levels of corporate management. Innovation in ecological accounting also exists on other perimeters (national, ecosystem scale) and can thus help to create articulations at different scales of ecosystem governance.

Interactive lectures are punctuated by exercises of varying length, putting students in an active position:

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

- game for comparative analysis of natural capital accounting tools and models, etc.

-A practical case study of ecosystem accounting approaches.

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