Asiatic Elephant conservation as a driver of forest carbon stock stabilization and avoided degradation in India

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:The methodology linking conservation area expansion to carbon stock changes is useful for assessing co-benefits of protected areas.

🏛政策担当者:Highlights how conservation-driven land stabilization can contribute to climate mitigation, relevant for national forest carbon accounting.

The conservation of the Asiatic Elephant Elephas maximus indicus serves a dual purpose: it maintains forest integrity and indirectly enhances carbon sequestration in the tropical ecosystems. This study assesses the relationship between elephant conservation efforts, the expansion of elephant reserves (ERs), and wildlife-associated carbon stock enhancement in India from 1992–2025. The present study employed an IPCC Tier-2–aligned model to estimate total carbon stock changes. This model integrated three primary data streams: elephant census data; the temporal expansion of ER surface area; and land use land cover-based carbon densities. Between 1992 and 2025, the ER network expanded from 18,297 km² to 80,777 km². This expansion coincided with a modest 6.7% increase in elephant population. The estimated total carbon stock within ER landscapes increased by 38%; however, this increase primarily reflects enhanced protection and reduced degradation of pre-existing forest carbon stocks, rather than newly generated biomass. Area-based protection accounted for ~95% of the observed change, while direct faunal biomass contribution remained limited. These findings highlight the role of conservation-driven land-use stabilization in supporting climate mitigation, while emphasizing the need for cautious interpretation of wildlife–carbon relationships.

• openalex https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.10471.18.6.29003-29009first seen 2026-07-17 04:50:49