IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/masfgc/v20y2015i7p1175-1190.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Contribution of agroforests to landscape carbon storage

Author

Listed:
  • Götz Schroth
  • Lucio Bede
  • Artur Paiva
  • Camila Cassano
  • André Amorim
  • Deborah Faria
  • Eduardo Mariano-Neto
  • Adriana Martini
  • Regina Sambuichi
  • Renato Lôbo

Abstract

While many studies have measured the carbon (C) stocks of traditional agroforests at the plot level, their contribution to overall landscape C storage has rarely been quantified. Here we demonstrate the significant contribution that traditional agroforests with shaded tree crops can make to landscape C storage, and thus climate change mitigation, focusing on the cocoa (Theobroma cacao) agroforests (locally known as cabrucas) of southern Bahia, Brazil. Using published allometric relationships and tree inventories of 55 shaded cocoa farms, 6 mature forests, 8 disturbed forests and 7 fallows, we calculate average aboveground C stocks of 87 and 46 Mg ha −1 in traditional and intensified cocoa agroforests, respectively, 183 Mg ha −1 in old-growth forests, 102 Mg ha −1 in disturbed forests and 33 Mg ha −1 in fallows. Based on the most recent land cover data available, we estimate that cocoa agroforests hold 59 % of the total aboveground C stocks of the tree dominated vegetation in this landscape, while forests hold 32 % and fallows hold 9 %. Carbon stocks of intensified cocoa agroforestry systems were only little over one-half of those of traditional agroforests, indicating a threat to landscape C stocks from current land use trends. We show that in agroforests as in natural forests, C stocks are highly concentrated in the largest trees. This suggests that the intensification of traditional agroforests, which generally involves increasing the density of cocoa and other tree crops and reducing the density of shade trees, is possible without greatly affecting their C storage if large trees are conserved. In order to conserve the climate stabilizing effect of traditional agroforests and steer necessary intensification measures towards climate-friendly solutions, we suggest that biodiversity and C-rich traditional agroforests should be included in current discussions about Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) and/or their owners be rewarded for their environmental services through other incentive mechanisms. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Götz Schroth & Lucio Bede & Artur Paiva & Camila Cassano & André Amorim & Deborah Faria & Eduardo Mariano-Neto & Adriana Martini & Regina Sambuichi & Renato Lôbo, 2015. "Contribution of agroforests to landscape carbon storage," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 20(7), pages 1175-1190, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:masfgc:v:20:y:2015:i:7:p:1175-1190
    DOI: 10.1007/s11027-013-9530-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11027-013-9530-7
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11027-013-9530-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Notaro, Martin & Gary, Christian & Le Coq, Jean-François & Metay, Aurélie & Rapidel, Bruno, 2022. "How to increase the joint provision of ecosystem services by agricultural systems. Evidence from coffee-based agroforestry systems," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    2. World Bank, 2017. "Brazil’s INDC Restoration and Reforestation Target," World Bank Publications - Reports 28588, The World Bank Group.
    3. Gama-Rodrigues, Antonio Carlos & Müller, Manfred Willy & Gama-Rodrigues, Emanuela Forestieri & Mendes, Fernando Antônio Teixeira, 2021. "Cacao-based agroforestry systems in the Atlantic Forest and Amazon Biomes: An ecoregional analysis of land use," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:masfgc:v:20:y:2015:i:7:p:1175-1190. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.