Assessing the carbon sequestration potential of oil palm plantations in Kalangala district :

Abstract

This study on assessment of aboveground carbon stock in oil palm plantations was carried out in the 4 selected different plots which were at the corners of the plantation. Also 4 plots were selected from the natural forest to enable comparison of the aboveground biomass in oil palm plantation and natural forests. The main objective was to estimate the aboveground carbon stock in oil plantations. The specific objectives included; finding the overall tree biomass production in oil palm plantations from the three allometric equations, and in the natural forests, to compare the above ground carbon stocks per hectare in oil palm plantations and natural/ tropical forests and finally to estimate the economic value of carbon sequestered by both natural forests and oil palm plantations. In data processing and analysis, all data collected from sampling plots were used for statistical evaluation. The data was summarized into tables and analyzed using Excel and SPSS. The results were illustrated using graphs for easy interpretation and discussions to draw conclusions. The results indicated that the aboveground biomass estimated from the four allometric equations is far different from each other. Allometric equation by Khalid gave a higher estimate of aboveground biomass in tonnes per hectare for both natural forests and oil palm plantations i.e. 242.08 and 106.24 respectively compared to equations by Henson, Chave and Syahrinudin. The results also indicated that the aboveground biomass in natural/tropical forests i.e. 124.56 and 242.08 is greater than the aboveground biomass in oil palm plantations compared by all the allometric equations. In addition, the economic value of carbon sequestered from the natural forest was higher than that from the oil palm plantation as estimated by the two models. It was recommended that tropical forests should not be substituted for oil palm plantations according to the results. Keywords: Above ground carbon stocks, Forest, Oil palm plantation.