Scientists at Michigan State University will work with top international organizations to determine how best to foster development in poor regions while protecting the environment.
According to excerpts from the article:
The World Wildlife Fund selected MSU to partner in a $5 million, 18-month project to develop systems to measure, monitor and manage carbon in landscapes worldwide. The tools developed under that tight deadline will help growers around the world better protect their land, improve productivity and fight global climate change.
“This is funding our carbon-to-markets model,” explained David Skole, a professor of global change science in the MSU Department of Forestry. “We’re looking at the carbon stocks on the land. In trees and vegetation, 50 percent by weight is carbon in some form. That’s why you can turn trees into fuel.”
Skole and colleagues actually conceived the project two years ago and have worked with the funder, the Global Environment Facility, since then to bring it to fruition.
They anticipate about $1.2 million as their share of funding for the brief pilot phase and expect another, follow-on phase to widen the scope to perhaps 10 countries. Their role now will be to help develop methods to establish carbon baselines and outcomes from land use activities in three developing countries in Africa and Asia.
The MSU group is specifically charged with developing remote satellite imaging systems to measure terrestrial carbon-sequestering activities in a variety of landscapes.
Read the entire article here.
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