After reading this term paper you will learn about the conservation of biomes and buffers to help in absorbing carbon from the atmosphere.
Term Paper on Biomes and Buffers
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Biomes are the habitats of a large number of plants and animals, in lands and oceans, under different natural climatic conditions. Their existences directly and indirectly play a significant role in maintaining natural cycles and climates. Major pools of carbon include the atmosphere, fossil fuels, oceans and the terrestrial biota (animals & plants) and soils. In natural cycle, carbon is exchanged between these pools and the atmosphere.
Ideally net carbon gain by the atmosphere due to the exchange processes should be zero. The atmospheric concentrations appear to have increased rapidly over the past 100 years and are currently higher than ever in human history. This suggests that more carbon is being released to atmosphere than can be absorbed on pools.
A major cause for more carbon in the atmosphere is the decreasing capacity of the pools acting as sinks, such as, forest, ocean and terrestrial biota. Over the past several decades, increasing human activity has caused rapid destruction of forests, pollution of oceans, and elimination of biota, with consequent shrinkage of capacity to absorb carbon. To reverse this trend it is important to put concerted efforts to prevent further destruction of the biomes and also to find ways and means for revival and/or increasing in the capacities of these biomes to absorb carbon.
Term Paper # 1. Global Carbon Cycle-Forest and Oceans:
A reservoir with the capacity to store and release carbon, such as soil, terrestrial biosphere, the ocean, and the atmosphere is called carbon pool. The ocean contains the largest active pool of carbon near the surface of the Earth, but the deep ocean part of this pool does not rapidly exchange with the atmosphere.
The global carbon cycle involves the natural emission, absorption and storage of huge quantities of carbon. It has been estimated that, every year, nearly four giga tonnes of carbon are exchanged between the earth/oceans and the atmosphere (table 15.1).
The change in carbon concentrations due to emission and absorption is known as the carbon flux. Net emitters of carbon are known as carbon sources and net absorbers of carbon are known as carbon sinks. Carbon can be stored in a number of ways such as in coal or oil, oceans, organic matter and plants.
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Carbon is added to the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels, organic respiration, wood burning, and volcanic eruptions. The uptake of carbon from the atmosphere occurs through mainly carbon dissolution into the oceans, and plant respiration.
Since the 1940s, tropical deforestation has accounted for by far the greatest net emissions from the natural environment, although these are still far below emissions due to fossil fuel use. In 1990 fossil fuels accounted for the release of some 6 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere whereas deforestation accounted for approximately 1.7 billion tons.
Term Paper # 2. Global Carbon Emission and Flow:
The total emission of 7.7Gt in the atmosphere is reduced to 3.7 Gt through absorption of carbon by oceans and forests of 2 billion tons each (table 15.1). Prevention of deforestation could have changed the emission to atmosphere figure to a low value of 0.3 billion tons (almost carbon neutral), due to increase in the absorption capacity of forests by 1.7 billion tons.
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The greatest stores of carbon are believed to be the world’s oceans and fossil fuel reserves. On land, carbon is stored in ground litter, soils and plants.
In Fig. 15.0, the quantities of carbon storage and annual carbon exchanges on the earth’s surface are shown. According to fourth IPCC report (1b), estimated amount of carbon stored in the atmosphere is 760 PgC (Pg= 1015g, 1012kg, 109t, 1Gt) of CO2 and its amount is increasing at rate of 3 PgC/yr.
On the other hand, the amount of organic matter stored in terrestrial ecosystem is 2000 PgC, which is about 3 times of that in the atmosphere. In addition, about 2/3 of the organic matter is contained in the forest ecosystem. Therefore the variation of the organic matter content in the forest ecosystem would have significant impact on atmospheric CO2 concentration.
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The IPCC report estimated that the forest ecosystem is neither sink nor source of CO2 in other words the input and output of carbon into and out of the system compete each other. However, these estimations are not accurate enough, so that reliable estimation of the carbon budget derived from the results of measurements in various ecosystems which cover wide area is urgently required.
Forest carbon “flux” can be more precisely measured by ‘Eddy Correlation Flux Measurement’. The system provides in situ half hour averages of the surface vertical fluxes of momentum, sensible heat, and latent heat. The fluxes are obtained by the eddy-correlation technique, i.e., by correlating the vertical wind component with the horizontal wind component, the sonic temperature (which is approximately equal to the virtual temperature), and the water vapor density. A 3-dimensional sonic anemometer is used to obtain the orthogonal wind components and the sonic temperature. An infrared hygrometer is used to obtain the water vapor density.
Term Paper # 3. Forest Management:
Carbon management of forests requires data on carbon pools and carbon exchange or flux with atmosphere. The theoretical models and simulation studies are used in profiling carbon pools and fluxes. Forests are thought to contain about 80% above-ground and 40% below-ground of total terrestrial organic carbon.
The world’s forest pools contain more than 55 percent of the global carbon stored in vegetation and more than 45 percent of that in soil. Most of the carbon pool in forest vegetation is located in tropical forests (62 percent), whereas most of the carbon pool in forest soils is located in boreal forests (54 percent).
Carbon flux data in tab. 15.1 indicates the need to prevent deforestation and to utilize deforested land for planned reforestation. Reforestation can absorb a substantial portion of the 1.7Gt of carbon flux, earlier lost to atmosphere due to deforestation.
Forest management practices for mitigating climate change can be grouped into three categories:
i. Management for Carbon Conservation:
main objective is to prevent carbon emissions by conserving existing carbon pools in forests through options such as controlling deforestation, protecting forests in reserves, changing harvesting regimes and controlling forest fire and pest outbreaks. The most significant steps towards carbon conservation consist of reducing deforestation and degradation in the tropics.
In recent years, there has been significant expansion of “protected areas”, comprising both mature forests and forests in other development stages, for the conservation of biological diversity and watershed protection. For example, Costa Rica protects 25% of its national territory within the protected area system, which is the largest percentage of protected areas in the world. It also possesses the greatest density of species in the world. While the country has only about 0.1% of the world’s landmass, it contains 5% of the world’s biodiversity.
ii. Carbon Storage Management:
Goal of storage management is to increase the storage of carbon in the vegetation and soil of forest ecosystems by increasing the area and/or carbon density of natural and plantation forests, and also to increase its storage in durable wood products.
Increasing the carbon pool in vegetation and soil can be accomplished by protecting secondary forests and other degraded forests whose biomass and soil carbon densities are less than their maximum value, thereby allowing them to sequester carbon by natural or artificial regeneration and soil enrichment. Sequestering carbon by storage management is only a short- term option, producing a finite carbon sequestration potential beyond which little additional carbon can be accumulated.
iii. Carbon Substitution:
Aims at the substitution of forest biomass carbon for non-renewable sources of raw material and fossil fuel-based energy, such as construction materials and biofuels. This approach involves increasing the use of forests for wood products and fuels, obtained either from establishing new forests or plantations, or increasing the growth and subsequent potential fibre production of existing forests through silvicultural treatments.
Silviculture (Latin ‘silvi’ means forest) is the practice of controlling the establishment, growth, composition, health, and quality of forest to meet diverse needs and values. Over long periods, the substitution management method is likely to be more effective in reducing carbon emissions than the physical storage of carbon in forests or forest products.
The implementation of forest management options that are compatible with traditional objectives of forestry, over the next 50 years or so there is a potential to conserve and sequester an amount of carbon equivalent to about 11 to 15 percent of total fossil fuel emissions over the same period.
The adoption of forest management options that conserve and sequester carbon would help to prevent forests from becoming a significant net source of CO2 for the atmosphere in the future and thereby help to offset other factors that contribute to accelerate global warming.
Term Paper # 4. Trees/Forests and the Global Carbon Cycle:
The photosynthesis converts carbon dioxide into carbohydrate, which is stored as biomass in the tree, and oxygen is released back into the atmosphere (Fig. 15.2). Young trees grow more rapidly and absorb more carbon dioxide than old trees. Although the old trees absorb less carbon dioxide, they have much greater stores of carbon in their biomass. In Scandinavia, for example, trees can live for up to 700 years, storing carbon for long periods. However, they eventually die and rot releasing the stored carbon back into the atmosphere.
Carbon absorbed by trees also returns to atmosphere, when the products, such as timbers and paper are incinerated, or when they rot in landfill and release methane – another, more potent, greenhouse gas. In order to alleviate climate change there must either be an increase in the amount of carbon that is taken from the atmosphere and stored for long periods or there must be a reduction in anthropogenic carbon emissions (or a combination of both). It has been suggested that forests and forestry have the potential to achieve these through an increase effort in the afforestation.
Term Paper # 5. Forest Preservation, Kyoto and Bali Conference:
The Kyoto Protocol recognizes that forests play a key role in global warming, since they are both sources and sinks of carbon dioxide. In fact, forest loss to agriculture or development, along with over harvesting, have made forests the second largest source of CO2. However, as Article 2 of the Protocol states, when existing forests are conserved and sustainably managed, or cut-over forests are replanted, they become effective long-term sinks.
When Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, deforestation was excluded partly because of the absence of a reliable scientific method for determination of ‘carbon loss’ due to deforestation. Hence under the current regime of Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, financial rewards for storing carbon through trees were attached only to reforestation or planting new trees. However, this restriction became hard to justify as evidence mounted that the destruction of tropical forests caused as much as 20% of GHG emissions.
With the availability of better technology for assessment in carbon loss, Bali conference’s call for ‘meaningful action to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation’ may pave the way to forest preservation. Brazil and Indonesia ranks the world’s third- and fourth- largest emitters, if deforestation is taken into account.
Carbon Mapping in Preserving Biodiversity and Forest:
An atlas correlating carbon and biodiversity has been produced by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC) of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). Atlas maps those places that contain major species concentrations and where efforts to stop deforestation will produce maximum benefit.
The atlas shows:
i. High biodiversity areas within the tropical Andes and Amazon account for 11 percent of the total carbon stock in the area and have been named as neotropics by the experts.
ii. Africa over 60 percent of the high biodiversity areas are in high carbon areas and contain a total of 18 billion tonnes of carbon.
Employing the techniques used in the atlas would make it possible to identify where areas of high carbon density and high density of high biodiversity and thus ensure preservation of those biomes.
For Example:
i. In Tanzania, key biodiversity areas contain 17 percent of the country’s carbon stock.
ii. Vietnam’s protected areas cover 32 percent of the land area that has been identified as having high values for both carbon and biodiversity,
iii. In Papua New Guinea the map illustrates how the centre of the country, which is high in biodiversity, also contains large areas of high carbon stock. It also shows that existing protected areas overlap with only 14 percent of the high carbon areas.
The above findings demonstrate the potential value of the protected area system for meeting both carbon and biodiversity goals.
Technological carbon capturing & storing (carbon) will have their role, but the biggest & widest returns may come from investing in and enhancing ‘natural carbon capture and storage systems.’ In doing so, countries will forge part of a global green New Deal in which the infrastructure of economically-important ecosystems is renewed and renovated while sustaining livelihoods and hundreds of thousands of new green jobs in forestry and conservation in developing countries. Using the atlas, experts are looking at how investments in conserving carbon in the world could be a viable proposition.
iv. Afforestation Offset and Chicago Climate Exchange Offsets are allowed for both additional removal of greenhouse gases and the avoidance of deforestation.
In Chicago climate market, the offsets are allowed for the followings:
i. Afforestation projects initiated on land that was degraded or bare as of January 1, 1990 and not required by law can earn CCX offsets.
ii. Afforestation projects that are implemented along with forest conservation can earn CCX.
A New Market in Forest Carbon to Provide Revenue to Landowners:
The capacity of forests to become enhanced carbon sinks can bring added revenue to landowners through the emerging market in forest carbon credits. A well-organized forest carbon market can provide financial incentive for landowners to permanently conserve more forests and practice the type of management that results in carbon-rich forests.
In this market, forest owners committed to increasing carbon stores can sell these gains to entities seeking to offset carbon dioxide emissions. For example, the Pacific Forest Trust recently completed the first transaction in this emerging market through Forest Climate Program when it sold forest carbon credits to Green Mountain Energy Company.
By using existing scientific forest measurement tools, and ensuring that forest carbon projects yield permanent gains by securing them through conservation easements (also called a conservation covenant), forest carbon sequestration projects can be verifiable, enforceable, and provide carbon stores clearly additional to those that would have accrued otherwise.
Forest Preservation- WWF Efforts:
For Ngoyle- Mintom forest in Cameroon-WWF proposes a comprehensive solution to maintain—through sustainable hunting and forestry to provide long-time livelihoods for locals, while preservation of core area pristine forest should protect species. In this process the needs of nature conservation and human are made compatible. This forested landscape would help avert damaging climate change.
Ecotourism:
Ecotourism is one of the few non-destructive land uses, preserving the biome, with capability of generating an immediate, competitive cash flow, along with economic and social development of the region. Peru’s Madre de Dios region has been undergoing an ecotourism boom. A large number of ‘eco-lodges’ thatched 30- bed tourist lodges, built in a region with vast areas of pristine rainforest, including some of the most biodiverse places on the earth, much of it protected in magnificent natural park.
Rainforest expeditions, run by the biggest tourist operator in the region, have entered into a twenty year joint venture with the local community, who shares the decision making through an elected ‘committee’, and receive 60% of the profits, amounting to $130,000 last year. They also got most of the last year’s $140,000 payroll. The company has been able to undertake conservation, social and economic development more nimbly than government or NGOs.