Forests store about 80% of all aboveground and 40% of all belowground terrestrial organic carbon, making forest ecosystems crucial to maintaining the global carbon balance and mitigating climate change (IPCC 2001). Forest carbon sequestration is a measure that can be taken up to mitigate climate change. But the amount of carbon stored in forests differs according to spatial and temporal factors such as forest type, size, age, stand structure, associated vegetation, and ecological zonation, among other things. Forest management and associated silviculture treatments are key determinants of forest carbon dynamics. Vegetation, along with associated soil types, are viable sinks and are making significant contributions to sequestering atmospheric carbon, thus mitigating the impacts of climate change. To quantify the amount of carbon sequestered in a forest ecosystem, temporal stocks of carbon within various forest strata need to be assessed.
This study presents the results of carbon assessment of protected forests at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) Knowledge Park at Godavari. In addition to updating the baseline carbon stock measured in 2012, this 2014 carbon stock assessment provided hands-on training to local resource persons. This will be helpful in the future when additional data has to be collected and for showcasing carbon monitoring techniques and sequestration rates to visitors to the Knowledge Park.