Growing common plantation tree species in Kenya for sale of carbon and wood supply: what is the best bet?

vkamau — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 09:15:42 +0000

Description

The introduction of carbon finance as an incentive in forestry farming has a potential of increasing the amount of carbon sequestered. However, this has created a daunting task among investors in forestry to optimise the joint production of wood and carbon sequestration. For instance, investors might find it profitable to give up some timber returns in exchange for carbon credits. This study evaluated expected income from growing Cupressus lusitanica Mill., Pinus patula Schiede ex Schltdl. & Cham., Eucalyptus saligna Sm. and Juniperus procera Hochst. ex Endl. for wood and/or the carbon market in central Kenya. The global average unit price of carbon and stumpage royalty were used to estimate expected returns from sale of carbon credits and wood, respectively. There were significant differences (p < 0.01) in the expected amount of income from sale of carbon and wood among the four species. Specifically, at economic rotation of 30 years with stand density of 532 trees ha−1 P. patula and C. lusitanica yielded US$28 050 and US$23 650, respectively, from sale of carbon compared with US$59 000 and US$51 000, respectively, from sale of wood. This was twice the value investors receive from clear-felling as compared with sales from carbon. Similarly, at economic rotation of 33 years with stand density of 150 trees ha−1, a forest investor in E. saligna would earn US$15 400 from sale of carbon compared with US$33 000 from sale of wood. Overall, the amount expected to be realised from sale of carbon was lower compared with that from sale of wood. This
demonstrates that the price dynamics of carbon offsets in the voluntary and the compliance markets need to remain competitive and attractive for the forest owners to give up some timber returns in exchange for carbon income or to
modify forest management regulation in order to increase carbon sequestration.

vkamau Tue, 04/25/2017 - 04:15

Citation

Vincent Oeba, Larwanou Mahamane, Samuel CJ Otor, James B Kung’u & Muchiri N Mbae (2017): Growing common plantation tree species in Kenya for sale of carbon and wood supply: what is the best bet?, Southern Forests: a Journal of Forest Science, DOI:10.2989/20702620.2016.1274860

Language

Author

Oeba, V.
Mahamane, L.
Otor, S.C.J.
Kung'u, J.B.
Mbae, M.N.

Forests and Climate Change carbon credits / carbon sequestration / Cupressus lusitanica / Eucalyptus saligna / Juniperus procera / pinus patula / sale of wood

The Distribution, Density, and Estimates of Carbon and Inorganic Nutrients in some Lesser-Used Species

sbritwum — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 22:58:23 +0000

The Distribution, Density, and Estimates of Carbon and Inorganic Nutrients in some Lesser-Used Species

Description

Timber is the third foreign exchange earner for Ghana and timber exports had for some time now been based on the so-called prime timber species (Table l) with little attention being paid to other species called secondary species or Lesser-Used species (LUS). This is with the result that prime species have been exploited, most of them are currently threatened, and their harvesting either reduced or banned. To sustain the timber industry therefore attention has been focused on the promotion of the Lesser-Used species. Currently however, many international initiatives have focused on sustainable management of forests, and this has resulted in the establishment of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) which has the ambition of setting world-wide standards for good forest management (FSC, 1992). The FSC is currently drawing up the principles and criteria for forest management which they hope will be used by organisations for forest monitoring and certification, consumers of forest products and policy makers. The FSC is also proposing to become an independent non-governmental international organisation, which will evaluate, accredit and monitor forest certification programmes. Certification of forest products will be one way to promote sustainable forest management practices. They propose that this should be market driven. Certification initiative that will provide economic rewards to forestry operations which will ascribe to management practices that are ecologically sustainable, socially beneficial and economically viable. By complying with certifying standards, the forest products will be granted access to the burgeoning worldwide 'green' market. The implications are that unless forestry activities are sustainable and environmentally acceptable, access to market will be difficult. Thus, sustainable forest management is necessary if the marketing of LUS is to succeed. Sustainable forestry as recently defined means "the stewardship and use of forests and forest land in such a way and at a rate, that maintains their biodiversity, productivity, regeneration capacity, vitality and their potential to fulfil now and in the future, relevant ecological, economic and social functions at local, national and global levels, and that does not cause damage to other ecosystems" (Helsinki Ministerial Conference, 1994).

Maintenance of productivity is an essential factor for sustainable forest management. However, one of the most important factors for productivity is nutrient availability. Thus in assessing the ecological sustainability of forest activities, the impact on nutrient availability should be determined. Many studies have however shown that in tropical forests between 60-90% of nutrients are stored in the above-ground biomass (Jordan 1985, Ruhiyat 1989). Thus, estimation of nutrients in the above-ground biomass of any species is a good indicator of the contribution of the species to nutrient availability in the ecosystem. Also among current global environmental problem that is of most concern is the accumulation of green house gases in the atmosphere which has begun to change the global climate (IPCC 1990). Reports suggest that managed forests and agroforestry systems have the potential to sequester and conserve about 10GT of carbon annually. Thus one of ecologically functions of the forest that is of global interest and which should be part of sustainable forest management practices is the sequestration and conservation of carbon.

However, the contribution of LUS in Ghana to nutrient availability and sequestration of carbon is not known. However, these contributions to ecological sustainability cannot be discussed without reference to the resource base. This paper therefore provides estimates nutrient and carbon storage of some Lesser-Used species as well as distribution and density.

sbritwum Wed, 04/13/2011 - 17:58

Responsible party

Forestry Research Institute of Ghana

Attachment	Size
Carbon_estimates.pdf	267 KB

Forests and Climate Change / Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Biological Invasions lesser used species / carbon sequestration / carbon / inorganic nutrients