Wednesday, 13 January 2010 - 13.30pm - 15.00pm
Speaker: Simon Lewis
Abstract
The Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania are unique for the multiple ecosystem services they provide including water, timber, non timber forest products, biodiversity and carbon as well as ecotourism potential. Despite these unique values, the forests are under multiple threats that lead into their degradation thus undermining these services. Carbon sequestration and storage is among the major ecosystem services provided by the Eastern Arc Mountain forests of Tanzania. In order to inform policy and management decisions for conservation of carbon ecosystem services it is important to quantify the carbon stocks and sequestration (production) fairly accurately and build an understanding of the flow of the service and how this may respond to future policy, management and development decisions in Tanzania. We are compiling existing data on carbon density and supplementing this information with additional field data that will enable estimates and mapping of carbon sequestration, storage potential and distribution across the Eastern Arc Mountains. We present the preliminary results of carbon density and its spatial distribution in the region including changes in carbon stocks under future development scenarios in Tanzania. Preliminary results of this work has been used and will continue to be used to inform decisions in relation to especially the REDD initiatives and framework in Tanzania.
Key Words: Eastern Arc Mountains – REDD – Carbon – Ecosystem Services
Pantaleo KT Munishi, Ruth Swetnam, Deo Shirima, Simon Lewis, Simon Willcock, Andrew Marshall, Neil Burgess Andrew Balmford and Jon Lovett