Chilean Patagonia stores almost twice as much carbon as the Amazon forests per hectare, according to study
Chilean Patagonia stores almost twice as much carbon as the Amazon forests per hectare, according to study
The leader of the research and professor at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the University of Chile and researcher at the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity (IEB), Jorge Pérez, said that this accumulation capacity is vital to mitigate climate change.
that this accumulation capacity is vital to mitigate climate change.
Peatlands are one of the ecosystems that retain the greatest stock of carbon per hectare globally, according to a study carried out by national researchers entitled 'How much carbon do terrestrial ecosystems of Chilean Patagonia store', a study recently published in the scientific journal Austral Ecology.
The leader of the study and professor at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the University of Chile and researcher at the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity (IEB), Jorge Perez, said that this accumulation capacity is vital to mitigate climate change. According to the academic, "keeping this carbon stored in ecosystems is related to combating climate change and hopefully increasing this accumulation in ecosystems to mitigate it".
Pérez, who participated in this work along with six other experts, states that "what the study revealed is that, per hectare, in a reserve, in a national park, a protected area in Patagonia could have almost twice as much carbon as a protected or well-conserved area in the Amazon.
He clarifies that "this does not mean that Patagonia has more carbon accumulated in total than the Amazon, because they are very different areas in terms of surface area. The Amazon still has much more, but Patagonia stands out for the amount of carbon it can store per hectare, especially in protected wild areas".
On the other hand, he states that "a study like this tells us how much carbon is accumulated in the ecosystems and, as in this case it is a lot, it means that it is extremely important to protect them. Carbon is accumulated there, both in forests and in peatlands, and we found that the latter accumulated about 1,700 tons per hectare, the area in general 430 tons per hectare and that rises to 508 when they are protected areas".
This research, says the academic from the University of Chile, fills an information gap that is vital for the protection of these forests. Based on it, he says, "we should take direct actions to protect, especially those ecosystems that contain a large amount of carbon.
Pérez adds that "the biodiversity crisis also exists, it is very serious and is associated with the degradation of ecosystems. So, we must conserve ecosystems as much as possible, protecting them benefits us and, if we have to manage them, we must do so in a rational way".
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