Toward the quantification of the climate co-benefits of invasive mammal eradication on islands: a scalable framework for restoration monitoring

Abstract Islands are hotspots of biological and cultural diversity that face growing threats from invasive species and climate change. Invasive mammal eradication on islands is a proven conservation intervention that prevents biodiversity loss and is a foundational activity for restoring degraded island-ocean ecosystems. However, these interventions are prioritized and evaluated primarily on biodiversity-based objectives despite growing evidence that invasive species removal may also serve as an effective nature-based solution to increase climate resilience of island-ocean ecosystems and contribute to climate change solution by protecting and restoring unique carbon stocks of native woody vegetation. To assess the effectiveness of interventions at the global scale, we developed a consistent and scalable framework for the long-term monitoring of tree cover, forest extent, forest carbon, and vegetation productivity in 1078 islands across 17 ecozones. Time-series of satellite-derived estimates of tree cover and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index over 36 yr (1984–2020) were used to establish annual baselines and changes in forest extent, carbon stocks, and vegetation productivity. The analysis revealed significant and sustained positive trends in all the indices on islands with eradication. The magnitude and potential biological relevance of these effects was highly variable across ecozones, but the overall sustained effects provide strong evidence of a positive ecosystem response to invasive mammal removal. We also found that, collectively, these islands sustain more than 940 000 ha of forest and 53 million MgC of forest carbon. This novel framework enables measuring the climate co-benefits of island restoration interventions in relevant policy terms using a low cost and globally consistent methodology that is applicable across the range of spatial and temporal scales pertinent to ecosystem recovery dynamics on islands.