A recent study in Ecological Solutions and Evidence shows just how complicated and challenging it is to achieve carbon sequestration goals through forest management — but not impossible. The research evaluates 10 years of a 14-year-long carbon project in Panama run by an Indigenous Emberá community, which collectively owns the land and tried different methods to store carbon by managing its tropical forest, including planting mixed species of native trees, planting single tree monocultures, and agroforestry, which involves growing food or other crops in combination with useful perennial shrubs and trees. “For us as land stewards, it is important to reforest trees for the well-being of our community and to have carbon credits that we can trade and earn an income, for the well-being of our family,” said Ariosto Guainora, one of the local reforestation project coordinators. The carbon project started in 2008 when the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) initiated the research with the Emberá community. Over the next three years, they’d contract the community for storage of 3,400 metric tons of carbon, assuming that 80% of trees would survive. But the new study found that, in all, the project has only sequestered about half of the carbon anticipated: the surviving plots are underperforming by 23%, while the overall target has been missed by 46% to date. While this result sounds low, it’s still better than the average for carbon offset project. Emberá community member Lidia Barrigón discusses the project with McGill University students. Image courtesy of Smithsonian Tropical…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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