Biodiversity and Carbon Sequestration in Forest Agroforest Mosaics of the Western Ghats Implications for Redd

Abstract

Western Ghats landscapes in peninsular India are the unique mosaics of newlinenatural forests and human-modified production landscapes such as coffee newlineagroforests. The present study was carried out in forest-agroforest mosaics of newlineKodagu district to understand the relationship between floristic diversity and carbon newlinestorage to optimize carbon management, while safeguarding the biodiversity using newlinerandom sampling technique for field data collection and 150 sample plots of 40 m x newline40 m were laid, in three bioclimatic zones. A total of 50 species in evergreen forest, newline32 species in moist deciduous forest and 23 species in dry deciduous forest were newlinerecorded. Small holder coffee farms with gt70% shade cover recorded higher tree newlinespecies richness and diversity in all the vegetation types. However, the total carbon newlinestock was recorded higher in large holdings with gt70% shade cover. Aboveground newlinebiomass in coffee agroforests held on an average 30% of the total carbon stocks, newlinewith the belowground biomass and soil components each contributing 7% and 63%, newlinerespectively. In natural forests, in contrast, soil component held on an average of newline67% of the total carbon stocks followed by aboveground vegetation and newlinebelowground biomass. This study also showed positive relationship between species newlinerichness and total carbon stocks, stronger in adjoining forests compared to coffee newlineagroforests leading to the starting point to understand the complex relationships to newlineachieve the twin objectives of biodiversity conservation and carbon stock newlineenhancement for climate change mitigation. The most important outcome of this newlinestudy is that carbon storage of biologically rich coffee agroforests was about 80% of newlinethat of adjoining forests of this region, suggesting that 1.2 ha of optimally managed newlineagroforests could contribute to the carbon stocks as much as 1 ha of natural forests. newlineThere is a need for incentive mechanisms to promote native tree populations which newlinesecure livelihood, conserve biodiversity and enhance carbon storage. newline