Carbon stock of trees in the lower montane forest of Mt. Kalatungan Range Natural Park in Mindanao, Philippines
Paper Details
Carbon stock of trees in the lower montane forest of Mt. Kalatungan Range Natural Park in Mindanao, Philippines
Abstract
A tree inventory and carbon stock assessment was conducted in three 50 x 100 meter randomly established sampling plots in the lower montane forest of Mt. Kalatungan, a protected area located in Mindanao, Philippines. A total of 31 species of trees belonging to 24 families that is dominated by Fagaceae, Lauraceae and Myrtaceae was recorded. The most frequent species are Lithocarpus spp., Syzygium spp., Neolitsea spp. Out of 833 tree species, 49.70% lies in the 21-28cm dbh class based on sturge’s rule. The greatest dbh recorded was 73cm from Syzygium spp. of the family Myrtaceae. The site obtained a greater mean stand density of 555 trees ha-1. The site also contained many trees with relatively greater dbh resulting to a high biomass and carbon stock estimate. The mean tree biomass density estimate was 628 ton ha-1 while the mean Carbon density estimate was 282 ton C ha-1. These results provide a robust justification for an effective protected area management in order to salvage the area from further deforestation and forest degradation. The conservation of forest resources, especially trees in Mt. Kalatungan would be very crucial in the Philippine’s efforts to mitigate climate change.
Batjes NH, Sombroek WG. 1997. Possibilities for carbon sequestration in tropical and subtropical soils. Global Change Biology 3(2), 161-173
Benner J, Vitousek PM, Ostertag R. 2010. Nutrient cycling and nutrient limitation in tropical montane cloud forest. In: Bruijnzeel LA, Scatena FN, Hamilton LS (Eds) tropical montane cloud forest. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge pp 90-100
Brown K, Pearce D. 1994. The Economic value of non- market benefits of tropical forests: Carbon Storage In: Weiss, J. (Ed.) The Economics of Project Appraisal and the Environment. New horizon in Environment Economics, E Elgar, Aldershot 102- 119.
Chave J, Andalo C, Brown S, Cairns MA, Chambers JQ, Eamus D, Folster H, Fromard F, Higuchi N, Kira T, Lescure JP, Nelson BW, Ogawa H, Puig H, Riera B, Yamakura T. 2005. Tree allometry and improved estimation of carbon stocks and balance in tropical forests, Oecologia, 145(1), 87-99.
Fernando E, Suh MW, Lee J, Lee DK. 2008. Forest Formations of the Philippines. ASEAN- Korea Environmental Cooperation Unit.
Harris RW. 1992. The root-shoot ratios. J. Arboriculture 18, 39-42
Kirschbaum MUF. 1996. The carbon sequestration potential of tree plantations in Australia, 89-95. As cited in: Environmental Management: The Role of Eucalypts and other Fast Growing Species Forestry and Forest Products 77-89.
Lasco D, Pulhin FB. 2000. Forest land use change in the Philippines and climate change mitigation. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies to Global change Journal 5, 81-97.
Lasco RD. 2002. Forest carbon budgets in southeast Asia following harvesting and land cover change. Science in China 45, 55-64.
Lasco RD. 2004. Carbon stocks assessment of a secondary forest in Mount Makiling Forest Reserve, Philippines. Journal of tropical science (16)1, 35-45
McDowell N. 2002. Developing countries to gain from carbon-trading fund. Nature 420:4. Parts 1 and 2, Global Environmental Change 4, 2 and 3, 1994, pp. 140-59, 185-200.
Nakashizuka T, Yusup Z, Nik AR. 1992. Altitudinal Zonation of Forest Communities in Selangor, Peninsular Malaysia. Journal of Tropical Forest Science 4, 233-244
Pan Y,Birdsey R,Fang J. 2011.A large and persistent carbon sink in the world’s forests. Science333,988-993.
Pearson TRH, Brown S, Ravindranath NH. 2005. Integrating carbon benefit estimates into GEF Projects. 1- 56. UNDP, GEF Capacity Development and Adaptation Group Guidelines.
Sombroek WG, Nachtergaele FO, Hebel A. 1993. Amounts, dynamics and sequestering of carbon in tropical and subtropical soils. Ambio 22, 417-426.
Joseph C. Paquitp, Jane Marien M. Bulasa, 2021. Carbon stock of trees in the lower montane forest of Mt. Kalatungan Range Natural Park in Mindanao, Philippines. J. Biodiv. Environ. Sci., 19(5), 1-6.
Copyright © 2021 by the Authors. This article is an open access article and distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license.