Processes and lands for sequestering carbon in the tropical forest landscape

Abstract

Balancing the C budget in the tropics has been hindered by the assumption that those forests not undergoing deforestation are in C steady state with respect to their C pools and thus with the atmosphere. The long history of human activity in tropical forests suggests otherwise. In this paper we discuss the forest compartments into which C can be stored, what the likely rates of storage are and for how long, and over which areas of the tropical landscape these processes occur. Results of our analysis suggest that tropical forests have the potential to sequester up to 2.5 Pg C yr−1 from the atmosphere if human pressure could be completely removed. Addition of agroecosystems and degraded lands could increase this estimate markedly.