Carbon Agroforestry
Yagasu restores and conserves lowland-, midland- and highland watershed ecosystems.
Sekolah Alam
The programme is designed as an environmental education platform for young people, teaching them important values in ecosystem preservation and sustainable practices from an early age.
Through Sekolah Alam, Yagasu hopes to build a younger generation that is more caring and responsible towards nature. With more young people having environmental understanding and awareness, Yagasu is optimistic that the future of our environment will be better preserved.
Project Activities
The objective will be achieved through accomplishment of outcomes and deliverable activities that include:(1) Land- and social assessment of planting sites, (2) Public engagement. (3) Education and awareness program. (4) Capacity building for local communities, (5) Nursery works and planting trees, (6) Ecosystem conservation; (7) Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV), (8) Research, (9) Social-economic supports; and (10) Project management and evaluation.
Planting trees.
The carbon calculation will be based on the 3 planting patterns carried out in each zone. Yagasu team will mobilize local community groups to plant various agroforestry seedlings that are suitable on each planting plot. The percentage of species composition and planting pattern will depend on each planting site characteristic, risks of mortality and preference of community groups.
There are 3 (three) steps of agroforestry planting in 4 years:
- Step-1 planting the 1st layer forest- and fruit trees with density of 500 seedlings per ha, and the 2nd layer coffee plantation with density of 700 seedlings per ha. Additional species of bamboo (156 clumps/ha) will be planted in slope-, riverbank- and water spring areas. The potential mortality after 6 – 12 months in the Step-1 is 20 – 40% because the rooting system is still unstable.
- Step-2 replanting the dead trees to maintain survival rate in the stable condition (80%). Replanting the dead trees can be done by planting other species to enrich the species variation. Diversification of species will perform heterogenous agroforestry. After 4 years, the planted trees usually will be much better survived and in more stable growth.
- Step-3 replacing the problem plot with a new plot if there is very high mortality or is a plot gone because of land-use change into other purposes.
Yagasu will provide around 5 – 10% (150 – 300 ha) from total project size as additional planting plots to anticipate if there are any land conversion into other purposes or totally the dead trees in the plot can’t be replanted. Therefore, at the time of validation and verification, the total planting plots can be consistently meet the target.
Yagasu team will mobilize local community groups to plant various agroforestry seedlings that are suitable on each planting plot. The percentage of species composition and planting pattern will depend on each planting site characteristic, risks of mortality and preference of community groups. The balance of planting system in each zone will be an ideal for carbon storage and accommodate the farmers for commercial cash crops. The species composition will be adjusted if there are any specific locations need special treatment for soil and water conservation, especially in very slope areas.
Carbon Target
In term of carbon calculation, the proposed project is a grouped project based on similar biomass accumulation rates of various horticultural tree species and shrubs. The planting system will be grouped within special attention to the similar carbon growth characteristics and planting densities.
The planting system proposed for Afforestation, Reforestation and Revegetation VM0047 project is carried out in three layers: 1st layer – for land-erosion prevention and water conservation, 2nd layer – cash crops producing commercial commodities and ground cover plantation – land surface shrubs – for soil protection and commercial purposes. Various bamboo species and palm sugar trees will be planted in very slope areas or used as a border between community lands. The carbon of each tree layer will be counted and estimated using existing reference allometric. The project activity will be monitored based on 3-year project roll out of tree carbon growth period.
Based on our research in the project sites of West Java, the project in 3 zones will sequester vegetation carbon with conservative value of 30.70 – 34.05 tCO2-e ha-1 yr-1 for 30 years carbon calculation. This carbon is calculated based on average density of 300 – 350 trees/ha at the age of 30 years. Based on several reference, the understorey carbon is around 3 – 5% of mature agroforestry trees.
The carbon estimation is based on the medium level of land fertile in all zones. However, the land in West Java is mostly high fertile and local climate is more compromised for faster tree growth. It means we can get more carbon when the real data collection during the VERRA validation and verification come to the field. Based on the Non-permanence Risk Assessment of this project, 10 – 15% buffer credits are to be deposited in the AFOLU pooled buffer account.
