Timothy93MK/forest-carbon-recovery

Aboveground carbon recovery after swidden agriculture in Communities surrounding Bojene and Kasewe Forest reserves, Southern, Sierra Leone # Aboveground Carbon Recovery After Swidden Agriculture ## Overview This project examines how aboveground carbon (AGC) stocks recover across a fallow chronosequence following swidden (slash and burn) agriculture in communities surrounding the Bojene and Kasewe Hills Forest Reserves, Sierra Leone. The work was completed as part of an MSc in Forestry (Forest Biometrics and Remote Sensing) at Njala University. ## Research Question How does aboveground carbon stock change with time since disturbance across fallow age classes in upland secondary forests? ## Study Design Seventy plots (40 x 40 m, 0.16 ha each) were established across four land use classes: | Age Class | Description | Fallow Age Range | No. of Plots | |-----------|-------------|-----------------|--------------| | Farmbush | Post-clearance regeneration | 0 to 4 years | 20 | | Young Secondary | Mid-successional secondary forest | 5 to 9 years | 20 | | Old Secondary | Late-successional secondary forest | 10 to 16 years | 20 | | Control | Mature old-growth forest | ~60 years standing | 10 | The 10 control plots were permanent plots established inside Kasewe Hills Forest Reserve (KHFR). The 60 fallow plots were temporary plots established across 20 surrounding communities: 10 communities in Moyamba District around KHFR and 10 communities in Bo District around Bojene Hills Forest Reserve (BHFR). Each community contributed one plot per fallow age class. There is no control baseline inside Bojene. The Kasewe control serves as the old-growth reference for both study sites. This is the main design limitation. All trees with DBH >= 10 cm were measured. Height was measured on a sub-sample of 359 stems, and a Michaelis-Menten model was used to predict missing heights. Aboveground biomass was estimated using the Chave et al. (2014) pantropical allometric equation (Model 4). Carbon stock was calculated using the IPCC default carbon fraction of 0.47. ## Methods - **Inventory**: Full census of stems >= 10 cm DB …