Evaluating Public Plantation and Community Planted Forests under the CDM and REDD+ Mechanism for Carbon Stock in Nepal

Abstract

Public plantations (PPs) and Community planted forests (CPFs) are inimitable types of participatory forest management practices in Nepal, but their eligibility issues under the framework of clean development mechanism (CDM) and reducing emission from the deforestation and forest degradation mechanism (REDD+) are not evaluated. So, to explore the management system of PP and CPF, we compared forest carbon stocks in plantations and evaluated these plantations under these mechanisms as objectives of this research. The relevant documents were revised and altogether 55 samples were collected from Shreepur, Banauta and Bisbity PPs and Sita, Ramnagar and Jogikuti CPFs, in Mahottary district, Nepal. The equation of Chave et al was used to calculate the biomass, which was further converted into carbon. Meanwhile, management practices were evaluated under the framework of CDM and REDD+. The PPs are public land managed, especially by disadvantaged communities, while CPFs are the patches of national forest managed by users. The variation in carbon stock was found to be highest (148.89 ton ha-)1 in Sita CPF and lowest (30.34 ton ha-)1 in Bisbitty PP. In fact, it is difficult to certify plantations under CDM, due to its complexity, but they can easily be candidate to the REDD+ mechanism, if they are bundled with large forest blocks.

Keywords

• CDM
• REDD+
• community
• public plantation
• carbon stock
• bundling