Carbon sequestration potential of community forests in Bhutan: a possible forest carbon pathway, trade-offs, and stakeholder perceptions

The Bhutan Government is exploring ways to generate revenue from its forest carbon. Community Forestry can contribute to this goal because of the presence of functioning Community Forest Management Groups (CFMGs) that can exercise effective local authority to ensure the adoption of management practices aimed at increasing carbon sequestration. Here we present a preliminary analysis of the issues associated with forgoing timber harvests in community forests as a potential forest-based carbon pathway. Assuming 50% leakage and transaction costs of $US 7 MgCO₂^-1, the carbon break-even price needed to compensate a sample of 20 CFMGs for forgoing legally permitted timber harvests averaged $35 MgCO₂^-1 (95% confidence interval 27-42). Under this scenario, an estimated $5 million ($45 ha^-1) annually would be required to compensate CFMGs for an additional carbon sequestration benefit of 151,012 MgCO₂, but this value is sensitive to factors such as leakage rates, transaction costs, and market conditions. Stakeholder perceptions about the trade-offs involved in managing community forests for carbon revealed a mix of positive and negative views across different stakeholder groups, highlighting both commonalties and differences. Before Bhutan engages in forest-based carbon markets, clarity is needed on issues such as carbon ownership, additionality, transaction costs, leakage, regulation of carbon sales and benefit distribution. By exploring the carbon pathway of forgoing timber harvesting and identifying the major information needs to engage in carbon markets, we provide the key elements of a framework for discussion of this and other forest carbon pathways (e.g., thinning and reforestation) to inform policy decision making.