Small-Scale Carbon Storage in a Relict Andean Forest: Linking Species-Level Biomass with Reported Corporate Emissions for Local Climate Mitigation

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

🔬研究者:Provides field-based carbon data for Andean forests and a method to link with corporate emissions.

🏢実務担当者:May inform corporate sustainability teams on potential nature-based offset opportunities, though with caveats.

🏛政策担当者:Highlights the need for conservation-financing mechanisms and the limitations of carbon credits.

Research Highlights: This study quantifies aboveground biomass for Oreopanax oroyanus and Escallonia resinosa in an Andean relict forest and examines their conservation relevance related to the scale of emissions voluntarily reported by small corporate emitters. Background and Objectives: Andean relict forests face severe fragmentation and degradation. This research evaluates carbon stocks in the Bosque de Zárate Reserved Zone (Peru) and explores how these findings may inform climate mitigation and conservation initiatives by examining their potential alignment with emissions voluntarily reported by Peruvian firms participating in a carbon disclosure system. Materials and Methods: A total of 27 plots were evaluated between 3034 and 3200 m a.s.l., tree height and diameter (DBH ≥ 10 cm) were measured for key species, and biomass was estimated using a pantropical allometric equation. Landsat imagery (1985–2025) was analyzed to assess long-term vegetation conditions, while Dynamic World land cover and Sentinel-1 radar (2018–2025) were used to assess forest cover and canopy structure changes. Voluntarily reported emissions of Peruvian firms participating in the “Carbon Footprint Peru” system (2012–2024) were analyzed to contextualize the forest results in the potential corporate interest in climate mitigation in Peru. Results: Total aboveground carbon stock for the altitudinal belt in the study area was 919.4 Mg C (18.6 Mg C ha−1), equivalent to 3374.2 Mg CO2, with Escallonia resinosa accounting for approximately 71% of the estimated stock. Multi-decadal satellite observations indicated persistent forest cover within the evaluated belt, while analysis of voluntarily reported corporate emissions identified numerous service-sector firms with annual emissions below 100 Mg CO2 eq, providing context for the potential scale of future conservation-financing initiatives. Conclusions: Relict forests offer relevant localized carbon storage linked to other ecosystem services. Providing field-based carbon data may support the development of locally relevant community-led initiatives meaningful to climate-financing initiatives. However, the existing carbon stock does not by itself represent a source of carbon credits, and carbon capture-specific studies would need to be implemented to fully assess the mitigation capacity of these ecosystems.

• semanticscholar https://doi.org/10.3390/f17080946first seen 2026-08-13 05:38:43