Abstract
West Papua’s Bintuni Bay is Indonesia’s largest contiguous mangrove block, only second to the world’s largest mangrove in the Sundarbans, Bangladesh. As almost 40% of these mangroves are designated production forest, we assessed the effects of commercial logging on forest structure, biomass recovery, and soil carbon stocks and burial in five-year intervals, up to 25 years post-harvest. Through remote sensing and field surveys, we found that canopy structure and species diversity were gradually enhanced following biomass recovery. Carbon pools preserved in soil were supported by similar rates of carbon burial before and after logging. Our results show that mangrove forest management maintained between 70 and 75% of the total ecosystem carbon stocks, and 15–20% returned to the ecosystem after 15–25 years. This analysis suggests that mangroves managed through selective logging provide an opportunity for coastal nature-based climate solutions, while provisioning other ecosystem services, including wood and wood products.
Highlights
West Papua’s Bintuni Bay is Indonesia’s largest contiguous mangrove block, only second to the world’s largest mangrove in the Sundarbans, Bangladesh
Soil carbon pools share 85% of the total ecosystem carbon stocks (TECS) in mangrove e cosystems[10]; its magnitude relying on the depth of the organic layer and rates of carbon burial facilitated by sedimentation
While a soil mass balance approach across a detailed depth profile found no evidence of soil carbon stocks being lost after forest management[8], further investigation into carbon burial trends before and after logging is critical to resolve u ncertainty[9,13]
Summary
West Papua’s Bintuni Bay is Indonesia’s largest contiguous mangrove block, only second to the world’s largest mangrove in the Sundarbans, Bangladesh. Land-use and land-cover changes (LULCCs) have generated significant losses for these coastal forests over the past few d ecades[3] Such LULCC activities include mangrove conversion to aquaculture and oil palm p lantation[3], as well as timber harvesting as part of forest management a ctivities[4]. While a soil mass balance approach across a detailed depth profile found no evidence of soil carbon stocks being lost after forest management[8], further investigation into carbon burial trends before and after logging is critical to resolve u ncertainty[9,13] Such information is important in attempts to include mangrove in greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction strategies. We assessed forest structure, species diversity, TECS, extracted timber volume and area, sediment accretion and carbon burial across sites harvested for timber, following regeneration after 0, 5, 10, 15 and 25 years, and in protected control forests (Fig. 1)
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