Carbon stock and biomass estimation of four different ecosystems within Cibodas Biosphere Reserve, Indonesia

Cibodas Biosphere Reserve (CBR) offers a challenging land use management and strategy in coping with climate change and CDM issues, due to the existing diverse ecosystems both natural and man-made. However, one of the main problems faced by Indonesia is the lack of quantitative data on CO2 sequestration capacity. No single carbon stock assessment was conducted at CBR since it was declared. This research aims to estimate carbon stocks contained in different ecosystems, identify CO2 sequestration capacity within different land uses, and establish carbon stock baseline data of four different ecosystems: natural forests, botanic gardens, monoplantation, and agriculture. The Brown formula was used to calculate above ground carbon, while the total dry weight of samples was used to estimate understorey and litter fall biomass. Necromass was calculated by multiplying volume and density (ρ). Above ground carbon value was converted from the biomass (i.e. biomass*0.46). Soil carbon was estimated by consecutively multiplying: soil organic carbon, weight of dry soil per soil volume, and area and depth of soil samples. The total carbon stock was the sum of above ground and soil carbon. The results showed that carbon sequestration capacity varied among ecosystems: natural forests contained 276.50 tons C ha-1, botanic gardens 127.19 tons C ha-1, tea plantation 99.59 tons C ha-1, while agriculture only 5.53 tons C ha-1. The contribution of above ground carbon to the total carbon stock was very high (99 per cent), in contrast with that of soil carbon which was only one per cent. The highest carbon stock contained in natural forests was found at the Vaccinium site. Carbon stocked in trees varied amongst locations, from 142.19 to 323.91 tons C ha-1. Trees contributed 80.16 per cent of the above ground carbon stock at the natural setting, while litter fall only supported 15.1 per cent, understorey 4.1 per cent, and necromass even only 0.64 per cent. These findings can be used as a benchmarking for guidelining afforestation and reforestation programs within REDD/REDD plus mechanism. Keywords: Cibodas Biosphere Reserve, carbon stock, land use types, REDD plus. Proceedings of the 6th Southeast Asia Biosphere Reserves Networks (SeaBRnet) Meeting Published by the Indonesia MAB National Commitee LIPI. Hal. 91-96 ISBN 978-602-18104-1-5