Presentation short abstract

We look at how rangelands fit into carbon accounting. Rangelands are misclassified as forests, unimproved grasslands, or empty land. This renders them as ‘available’ spaces for carbon sequestration, while not recognising unique challenges they face to ensure sustainability in a changing climate.

Presentation long abstract

Rangelands cover 50% of the earth’s land surface and are unique ecosystems driven by fluctuating rainfall and temperature, fire regimes, and grazing mobility. Surprisingly, they do not feature as a land-use category under IPCC's Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) carbon accounting guidelines. As a result, when countries compile national emission inventories, rangelands become either ‘forest’, ‘unimproved grassland’, or ‘other land’. Under assumptions of universal drivers of linear carbon accumulation, afforestation, woody encroachment, grazing exclusion, fire exclusion, and agricultural intensification become ‘countable’ sources of carbon sequestration. Consequently, interventions considered negative for rangelands are misread as climate action. We ask why rangelands were excluded as a distinct category within LULUCF accounting and what this omission implies for South African rangelands today. Drawing from the perspective of political ecology, we explore this question through a document analysis of LULUCF guidelines, the informing IPCC meeting reports, and South African policy stemming from them. We find that LULUCF land use categories were politically decided, and misclassification of rangelands intentional. These classifications prioritise easily ‘measurable’ forms of carbon over ecological integrity, and echo colonial-era environmental narratives. Rangelands are left with a dual problem: misclassification as marginal, deforested, ‘unimproved’ or empty landscapes ripe for intervention, while not recognising the unique challenges they face in ensuring sustainable utilisation and resilience in a changing climate. As pressure mounts for carbon dioxide removal, we urgently need to revisit how we classify rangelands and count carbon to prevent irreversible losses of major ecosystems and the livelihoods they support.