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Gran cantidad de carbono en los bosques montañosos tropicales africanos

Aida Cuni-Sanchez^1,2, Martin J P Sullivan^3,4, Philip J Platts^5,6,7

¹Department of Environment and Geography, University of York, York, UK. a.cuni-sanchez@york.ac.uk.

|August 26, 2021

Resumen

Los bosques montañosos tropicales africanos almacenan una cantidad significativa de carbono de la biomasa viva de los árboles (AGC) en la superficie. A pesar de estar en peligro, estos bosques contienen más carbono del estimado previamente, lo que requiere esfuerzos urgentes de conservación.

Área de la Ciencia:

Ecología
Sector forestal
Ciencia del cambio climático

Sus antecedentes:

Los bosques tropicales son sumideros cruciales de carbono, almacenando el 40-50% del carbono de la vegetación terrestre.
Las reservas de carbono de la biomasa de árboles vivos (AGC) en los bosques tropicales de montaña son poco conocidas.
Los bosques de montaña generalmente tienen reservas de AGC más bajas que los bosques de tierras bajas debido a los cambios ambientales relacionados con la elevación.

Objetivo del estudio:

Para analizar las poblaciones de AGC en los bosques montañosos tropicales africanos.
Para comparar estas poblaciones con otros ecosistemas de bosques tropicales a nivel mundial.
Proporcionar datos para las estrategias de conservación y reforestación.

Principales métodos:

Recopilación y análisis de datos del conjunto de datos AfriMont, que comprende 44 bosques antiguos en 12 países africanos.
Las poblaciones medias de AGC y los intervalos de confianza calculados para los lugares estudiados.
Estimaciones de las existencias de AGC modeladas para cada país.

Principales resultados:

Los bosques de montaña africanos de la red AfriMont tienen un stock medio de AGC de 149,4 megagramos de carbono por hectárea.
Estas reservas son comparables a las de los bosques de las tierras bajas africanas y significativamente superiores a las de los bosques de montaña y de las tierras bajas neotrópicas.
Los resultados son sustancialmente más altos (dos tercios) que los valores predeterminados del Grupo Intergubernamental de Expertos sobre el Cambio Climático para los bosques africanos.
Los bosques de montaña africanos exhiben una baja densidad de tallo y una gran abundancia de árboles grandes, similares a los bosques de tierras bajas africanas.
Se estima que desde el año 2000 se han perdido 0,8 millones de hectáreas de bosques antiguos de África.

Conclusiones:

Los bosques montañosos tropicales de África son ecosistemas vitales y ricos en carbono.
Los esfuerzos actuales de conservación y reforestación pueden subestimar el potencial de almacenamiento de carbono de estos bosques.
Se necesita una conservación urgente para proteger estos ecosistemas ricos en biodiversidad y carbono de la deforestación en curso.

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