Abstract
In view of the heavy people’s dependence (80 %) on various forms of land-based resources, carbon sequestration should not only be targeted in forests, but also on private land agroforestry. A survey was conducted in 2011 to investigate the gap in contribution of agroforestry carbon to the household economy in the middle hills region of Rasuwa district of Nepal. A total of 120 households were randomly selected and surveyed, of which eight were further examined for detailed tree carbon measurement. It is estimated that a total of 48.60 ton C per hectare has been stocked in agroforestry sites in the middle hills region. Assuming a carbon price of $US12/ton, the total potential income from carbon sequestration per household would amount to NPR 45,490/ha in 20 years of agroforestry if a payment scheme were introduced. The income from carbon sequestration is quite low compared with other agroforestry income. Policy implications are thus oriented towards farmers reaping multiple benefits from the existing international mechanisms by having negotiations based on contribution of all agroforestry components (farm trees, crops and animals) rather than limited to forest carbon stock. To benefit from these multiple functions of farms and forests, the policy framework to address the climate-related affects and risks (e.g., of landslides, burst of Himalayan lakes) should be broad enough to produce potential synergy between the negative effect of climate change and agroforestry income.
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Notes
USD 1 = NPR 78 at the time of survey.
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Acknowledgments
Financial support from the Norwegian Research Council (NFR) funded project entitled ‘Forest and Soil Restoration and Land Use Change Impacts on Carbon Pools and Fluxes in the Himalaya: Research and capacity building in Nepal’ is highly appreciated. The work was done in collaboration with the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB), Kathmandu University, Department of Forest Research and Survey (DFRS), Nepal Agroforestry Foundation and Forest Action. The authors are grateful to all staff and volunteers of the Nepal Agroforestry Foundation who provided the case study data and other logistic support for conducting this study.
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Pandit, B.H., Neupane, R.P., Sitaula, B.K. et al. Contribution of Small-Scale Agroforestry Systems to Carbon Pools and Fluxes: A Case Study from Middle Hills of Nepal. Small-scale Forestry 12, 475–487 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-012-9224-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-012-9224-0