TITLE:
Cumulative Carbon Fluxes Due to Selective Logging in Southeast Asia
AUTHORS:
Vathana Khun, Nophea Sasaki
KEYWORDS:
Carbon Emissions, Conventional Logging, Harvested Wood Products, REDD+
JOURNAL NAME:
Low Carbon Economy,
Vol.5 No.4,
December
12,
2014
ABSTRACT: Selective logging creates
a large amount of wood residues in forests in addition to producing a small
amount of sawnwood for use as source of construction materials. Although
accounting for carbon fluxes in harvested wood products (HWPs) becomes
necessary in the fight against climate change, previous studies focused mainly
on carbon fluxes in HWPs in temperate and boreal forests. This report attempts
to analyze carbon fluxes in various wood components created by selective
logging in production forest in Southeast Asia during a hypothetical period of
carbon project implementation between 2015 and 2050 under conventional (CVL)
and reduced-impact logging (RIL). Study results suggest that CVL produced about
146.6 (±5.4) million m3 annually.
Logging created annual carbon fluxes of about 0.23, 0.23, 0.20, 0.69, and 0.15
MgC ha-1·year-1 in
sawnwood, wood wastes at sawmills (SWW), wood product wastes due to logging
damages remained in the forests (WPW), branches and top logs (BRA), and
belowground dead root (BLD), respectively. Cumulative carbon fluxes were
estimated at 281.0, 506.6, and 87.4 TgC year-1 in sawnwood, onsite (WPW, BRA, BLD),
and offsite (SWW) pools, respectively. Except in SW, cumulative carbon fluxes
in onsite and offsite pools showed a decline trend in about 10 years after
logging. Switching from CVL to RIL could increase fluxes in sawnwood 60% higher
than that under CVL, while reducing fluxes in short-lived onsite and offsite
wood residues. Not only RIL can increase carbon fluxes in sawnwood, it can also
increase production of sawnwood and retain more carbon in standing forests.