Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Carbon flows and economic evaluation of mitigation options in Tanzani's forest sector

Journal Article · · Biomass and Bioenergy

This paper presents estimates of the rate of forest use, deforestation and forest degradation, as well as the corresponding carbon flows, in the Tanzanian forest sector. It is estimated that the country lost 525,000 ha of forests in 1990, with associated committed emissions of 31.5 Mt. Carbon (MtC), and 7.05 MtC of committed carbon sequestration. The paper then describes the possible response options in the forest sector to mitigate GHG emissions, and evaluates the most stable subset of these-i.e. forest conservation, woodfuel plantations and agroforestry. The conservation options were found to cost an average of U.S. $1.27 per tonne of carbon (tC) conserved. Five options for fuelwood plantations and agroforestry, with two different ownership regimes were evaluated. Each one of the options gives a positive net present value at low rates of discount, ranging from U.S. $1.06 to 3.4/1C of avoided emissions at 0 percent discount rate. At 10 percent discount, the eucalyptus and maize option has a highest PNV of U.S. $1.73 tC, and the government plantation gives a negative PNV (loss) of U.S. $0.13 tC sequestered. The options with a private/community type of ownership scheme fared better than government run options. This conclusion also held true when ranking the options by the BRAC indicator, with the government fuelwood plantation ranked the lowest, and the private agroforestry option of eucalyptus and corn performing best. The mitigation options evaluated here show that the forest sector in Tanzania has one of the most cost-effective GHG mitigation opportunities in the world, and they are within the developmental aspirations of the country.

Research Organization:
Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA (US)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Director, Office of Science (US)
DOE Contract Number:
AC03-76SF00098
OSTI ID:
809883
Report Number(s):
LBNL--49129; B& R 400408000
Journal Information:
Biomass and Bioenergy, Journal Name: Biomass and Bioenergy Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 8; ISSN 0961-9534; ISSN BMSBEO
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English