The Natural Fix?

TROPICAL FORESTS

Tropical forests hold the largest terrestrial carbon store and are active carbon sinks. Re- ducing emissions from deforestation and degradation is a vital component of tackling dangerous climate change. In addition, tackling illegal and ill-managed logging will be an important part of reducing emissions from forestry.

Tropical forests occupy large areas of central and northern South America, western Africa, South-East Asia and north- eastern Australia. Most tropical forests are moist forests, found in areas where annual rainfall normally exceeds 2000 mm per year and is relatively evenly distributed. Such forests have extremely high levels of plant, mammal, insect, and bird diversity and are considered to host the greatest biodiversity of all the Earth’s biomes.

in the vegetation, with biomass estimates of 170–250 t C per ha (Malhi et al. 2006; Chave et al. 2008; Lewis et al. 2009). Tropical moist forests can vary considerably in their carbon stocks depending on the abundance of the large, densely wooded species that store the most carbon (Baker et al. 2004). On average, they are estimated to store around 160 tonnes per hectare in the above-ground vegetation and around 40 tonnes per hectare in the roots. Soil carbon stocks are estimated by Amundson (2001) at around 90- 200 tonnes per hectare, and are thus somewhat lower than biomass stocks.

The warm and wet climate of tropical moist forests results in rapid plant growth and most of the carbon can be found

Tundra Boreal forest Temperate forest Temperate grasslands, savannas and shrublands Desert and dry shrublands

Tropical and subtropical forests Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas and shrublands

Source: adapted from Olson et al., 2001.

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