Carbon Sequestration of Ponderosa Pine Plantations in Northwestern Patagonia

Forest plantations are yet at a starting point in Argentine Patagonia. Since the first pine plantations were settled in the early 1970s, landowners and local governments have been indeed interested in forestry as a means to diversifying the dominant cattle monoculture. However, climate and soil (site) attributes-driving factors of the long term rotation periods and environmental risk-associated with current local wood prices, delayed the forest development. In this context, carbon trade arises as a new market service that could compensate for these drawbacks. This study case describes the physical environment were forests plantations evolve (subtitle 2), the land potential and carbon baseline for afforestation (subtitles 3 and 4) and analyses the stand growth and CO2 capture, providing orientative data and empirical models of use to account for sequestered carbon (subtitle 5). Also, regional scenarios of carbon sequestration by forests at stand, watershed and regional levels are presented (subtitle 6).