Present and future importance of protected areas as carbon sinks and storages in Finland

The EU aims at reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 and Finland by 2035. Net negative greenhouse gas emissions are needed to comply with the targets of the Paris climate agreement. We integrated results of three spatially distributed model systems (FRES, PREBAS, Zonation) to evaluate the potential to reach this goal at both national and regional scale in Finland, by simultaneously considering protection targets of the EU biodiversity strategy. Modelling of both anthropogenic emissions and forestry measures were carried out, and forested areas important for biodiversity protection were identified based on spatial prioritization. We used scenarios until 2050 based on mitigation measures of the national climate and energy strategy, forestry policies and predicted climate change, and evaluated how implementation of these scenarios would affect greenhouse gas fluxes, carbon storages, and the possibility to reach the carbon neutrality target. Potential new forested areas for biodiversity protection according to the EU 10% strict protection target provided a significant carbon storage (426-452 TgC) and sequestration potential (-12 to -17.5 TgCO₂eq a^-1) by 2050, indicating complementarity of emission mitigation and conservation measures. Assuming a price of ca. 80 € ton^-1 CO₂eq according to the current level of the EU emission trading system (EU ETS), the economic value of the carbon sequestration of the current protected areas in Finland would be about 500 million € per year. These areas thus provide ecosystem services of significant economic value. The results of our study can be utilized for integrating climate and biodiversity policies, accounting of ecosystem services for climate regulation, and delimitation of areas for conservation.