Forest carbon stocks in woody plants of Chilimo-Gaji Forest, Ethiopia: Implications of managing forests for climate change mitigation

Abstract

Tropical forests play a key role in climate change mitigation by sequestering and storing carbon from the atmosphere. In Ethiopia, there are inadequate data in the form of carbon accumulation records or databank to assess the carbon sequestration potential of different forests. This study intended to estimate the living biomass and carbon stocks of woody plants in Chilimo-Gaji Forest. Totally, 10 circular plots with 20 m radius each having 1,256 m2, estimated the biomass of 17 tree species using the nondestructive allometric equation. The total woody biomass of the study area estimated to be 1013.3 t ha-1, of which, about 83.3 % (844.4 t ha-1) was aboveground, and 16.7% (168.9 t ha-1) was below ground biomass. The total carbon stocks and total carbon sequestration potential of the study area was about 506.7 t C ha-1 and 1859.45 t ha-1, respectively. The result indicates that the Chilimo-Gaji Forest has huge potential for carbon stock compared to research conducted on other remnant forests in Ethiopia. This is mainly due to the improvement in the forest stocks as a result of participatory forest management practices in the area. Generally, Chilimo-Gaji Forest is playing a vital role in carbon sequestration, thereby contributing to climate change mitigation. Therefore, in the future, the forest can generate carbon credits as financial benefits to the indigenous population, which could help to strengthen the conservation efforts of forest resources in the study area.