WCS 3-Sentence Science

Rwanda’s Declining Ecosystem Services

January 16, 2020

CREDIT: WCS RWANDA PROGRAM

Each year, Wildlife Conservation Society scientists publish more than 300 peer-reviewed studies and papers. “WCS 3-Sentence Science” is a regular tip-sheet — in bite sized helpings — of some of this published work.

Here we present work by WCS’s Mediatrice Bana on the impact to ecosystems of forest conversion in Rwanda:

1. Researchers documented a decline in ecosystem services (ES) in Rwanda over a 25-year period mostly due to conversion of forests to croplands, and were most pronounced from 1990 to 2000 and again from 2010 to 2015.
2. The results quantify nationwide ES trends, their implications for key water‐dependent industries, and the importance of protected areas in safeguarding ES flows and potential supply in Rwanda.
3. They also provide data that can be integrated with existing land, water, and economic accounts for Rwanda, as well as a baseline to inform development strategies that better link economic and environmental goals.

Study and Journal: “Towards ecosystem accounts for Rwanda: Tracking 25 years of change in flows and potential supply of ecosystem services” from People and Nature
WCS Co-Author(s): Mediatrice Bana, Sustainable Conservation Finance Manager, WCS Rwanda

For more information, contact: Stephen Sautner, 718–220–3682, ssautner@wcs.org.