Abstract

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Understanding the capacity of forest ecosystems to store carbon is fundamental in quantifying the contribution of trees to climate mitigation because they indicate the amount of carbon that can be offset. This study was conducted to estimate the living biomass and carbon stock for selected part of miombo woodland in Chongoni forest reserve with the purpose of providing data for sustainable forest management and baseline data for carbon monitoring. The results shows that there is significant amount of living biomass (1690±32 tonnes ha-) and carbon stock (845±16 tonnes ha-) for miombo woodland in the forest reserve. There were significant (P<0.001) differences among dbh classes on number of stems per hectare with the small dbh class (5-14.9cm) having the highest (261±3) number of stems per hectare. However, there were no significant (P>0.05) differences between medium dbh class (15–29.9 cm) and the large dbh class (≥30cm) on number of stems per hectare, even though the large dbh class had slightly higher (171±5) number of stems per hectare than the medium dbh class (161±5). The uncertainty for the estimated living biomass and carbon stock were low (<4%) at 95% confidence level. Further estimation of biomass and carbon stock for the remaining part of miombo woodland in Chongoni forest reserve is required, which could lead to recommendation for REDD+ activities to be carried out in Malawi with Chongoni forest reserve as one of the site.

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