Carbon stocks and losses to deforestation in protected areas in Brazilian Amazonia

Euler Melo Nogueira,Sumaia Saldanha De Vasconcelos,Philip Martin Fearnside,Aurora Miho Yanai,Paulo Maurício Lima De Alencastro Graça

doi:10.1007/s10113-017-1198-1

Abstract

By 2014 approximately 2.2 million km2 (~43%) of Brazil’s Legal Amazonia region had been incorporated into an extensive network of 718 protected areas, which are comprised by 372 indigenous lands, 313 federal, state and municipal (county) conservation units, and 33 Maroon territories (Quilombos). Although protected areas occupy vast expanses in Amazonia, their importance as carbon reserves needs to be better understood. In this study, we estimate the total carbon in 2014 held in protected areas in Brazil’s “Legal Amazonia” and “Amazonia biome” regions, and the carbon loss in the portions of these protected areas that were cleared by 2014. In 2014, a total of 33.4 Pg C or 57.0% of all carbon stored in Legal Amazonia was held in protected areas and 32.7 Pg C or 58.5% of all the carbon stored in the Amazonia biome was held in protected areas. By 2014, carbon lost due to clearing in protected areas in Legal Amazonia and the Amazonia biome totaled, respectively, 0.787 (or 2.3%) and 0.702 (or 2.1%) Pg C if one assumes that previously each protected area was entirely covered by native vegetation. If the protection of these areas is effective, about half of the carbon in Brazilian Amazonia will be maintained. Carbon in protected areas has strategic value for environmental conservation and for mitigation of climate change because these areas are under lower risk of being emitted to the atmosphere than carbon stored in vegetation located outside of protected areas, although the effectiveness of protected areas varies.

Highlights

Amazonia is a large and dynamic reservoir of carbon that holds about 20% of the total carbon contained in the world’s terrestrial vegetation (Malhi et al 2006; Houghton 2007; Saatchi et al 2007, 2011; Baccini et al 2012)
The amount of carbon held in these protected areas was equivalent to 57.0% of the total carbon stock in native vegetation in Legal Amazonia in 2014 and 58.5% of the total carbon in the Amazonia biome, when calculated using the same biomass dataset and methodological approaches
Both in Legal Amazonia and the Amazonia biome, most of the protected carbon in 2014 was held in indigenous lands and in federal and state conservation units, which together stored approximately 99% of the total carbon stock in all protected areas analyzed in these regions, without discounting any overlaps between different types of protected areas (Tables S3 and S4)

Summary

Introduction

Amazonia is a large and dynamic reservoir of carbon that holds about 20% of the total carbon contained in the world’s terrestrial vegetation (Malhi et al 2006; Houghton 2007; Saatchi et al 2007, 2011; Baccini et al 2012). Almost all of the carbon that is Blost^ from the vegetation is emitted as greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) (Fearnside 1997, 2000). This occurs whether biomass is oxidized via combustion or decay (Barbosa and Fearnside 1996). When standing forest is degraded, a small part of the carbon in decaying biomass is incorporated into the soil as organic matter (Barros and Fearnside 2016), these additions to the soil carbon pool can eventually be expected to be released

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Discussion

Conclusion