Africa's Rangelands Could Store 11 Gigatons of Carbon by 2050

Africa's vast grasslands, home to pastoral communities for centuries, are emerging as an unexpected climate powerhouse that could reshape global carbon reduction efforts.

A groundbreaking roadmap from Conservation International and Wits University shows that improved management of Africa's rangelands could store up to 11 gigatons of carbon dioxide by 2050. That's equal to about 20% of current global annual emissions, achieved not through expensive new technology but through changes in how people graze livestock and use fire.

The landscapes cover nearly 70% of sub-Saharan Africa and have long been dismissed in climate discussions as degraded land. The new analysis flips that narrative entirely, revealing these are working ecosystems shaped by grazing, fire and rainfall over centuries.

The solution centers on practices many pastoral communities already understand. When livestock move through planned rotations instead of staying in one place, vegetation recovers, soil captures more carbon, and grassland diversity improves. Controlled burns, used as an ecological tool rather than something to suppress, maintain ecosystem balance and prevent destructive wildfires.

Conservation International's Herding for Health programme is already testing these approaches across one million hectares in seven African countries. The initiative works with pastoral communities to introduce planned grazing while improving livestock health and market access, showing how ecological recovery and better livelihoods can grow together.

The broader roadmap estimates that coordinated ecosystem interventions across sub-Saharan Africa could deliver 1.6 gigatons of carbon mitigation annually through 2050. Forest and wetland restoration alone could capture up to eight additional gigatons while improving water security.

"For too long, global climate policy and finance have treated Africa as an afterthought," says Jimmiel Mandima, Conservation International's chief field officer in Africa. "This roadmap says economic growth doesn't have to come at a high carbon cost."

The timing matters deeply for a continent contributing only 4% of global emissions while experiencing some of the worst climate impacts. Recurring droughts and floods already threaten the quarter of sub-Saharan Africans who faced acute food insecurity in 2024.

The Ripple Effect

The roadmap's impact extends far beyond carbon storage. Climate-smart agriculture practices scaled across half of Africa's smallholder farms could prevent 6.5 gigatons of emissions by 2050 while improving crop yields and creating millions of jobs.

Researchers emphasize these solutions must reflect how people actually live with and manage nature. Professor Laura Pereira and Professor Sally Archibald from Wits University note that many Africans today live within and alongside nature, offering lessons the rest of the world needs to learn.

The approach challenges one-size-fits-all climate interventions, particularly misguided tree-planting campaigns in savannas that aren't naturally forested. Instead, it prioritizes solutions grounded in African ecological realities and traditional knowledge systems.

As the continent's population heads toward 2.1 billion by 2050, this roadmap offers a path where feeding more people and healing the planet aren't competing goals but complementary ones.