Cape Town - Researchers have found that the soil across West Africa has played a vital role towards mitigating the effects of climate change.
A team of scientist from South Africa and Europe found that the “Sacred Forests” in Togo, West Africa have been storing carbon dioxide over a several hundred square kilometre forest.
Stellenbosch University Department of Soil Science researcher Michele Francis said: “Our study showed that soils in these forests preserve at least 8.64 tonnes of inorganic carbon per hectare.
“This carbon is derived directly from the CO2 in the air of the soil. In real terms, we are talking about an area the size of a rugby field that permanently removed as much CO2 as is released by a power station burning 15.8 tonnes of coal.”
She said the soil’s inorganic carbon is an important carbon sink because the carbon is permanently locked away in mineral form, unlike carbon derived from soil organic matter such as leaf litter and humus.
“The organic matter decomposes and releases the carbon back to the atmosphere as CO2 again, unless there is an intermediary step which is able to capture and store the carbon permanently as in the sacred forest soils,” she said.
The researchers wanted to gain a better understanding of the variations in soil properties and the process of carbon formation in the soil under these highly biodiverse “Sacred Forests”, which are used for religious purposes and believed to be inhabited and protected by gods, totem animals or ancestors.
Francis said: “Understanding these natural processes is fundamental for the implementation of soil management practices leading to carbon sequestration and improvement of soil quality status in the region, and possibly in other countries with similar climates, vegetation and land use/land cover histories.
“This is particularly important in areas where these forests are becoming rarer and more fragmented because of population growth, expansion of buildings, construction of roads, and erosion of traditional religious beliefs.”
Cape Argus