Carbon Stock in Church Forests

Forests can act as sink through the process of trees growth and resultant biological carbon sequestration. Thus, increasing the amount of trees can potentially slow the accumulation of atmospheric carbon (Brown, 2002; Fearnside and Laurance, 2003 and 2004; Houghton, 2005). According to IPCC (2001), it stores about 80% of all above-ground and 40% of all below-ground terrestrial organic carbon. The Above-ground biomass carbon pool consists of all living vegetation above the soil, inclusive of stems, stumps, branches, bark, seeds and foliage, the below-ground carbon pool consists of the biomass contained within live roots, the dead organic matter carbon pool includes all non-living biomass with a size greater than the dead organic matte limit for soil organic matter, commonly 2 mm, and smaller than that of wood, 10cm diameter (IPCC, 2006), Soil carbon includes carbon in both mineral and organic matter is a major reserve of terrestrial carbon. Church forests, including other sacred places, are relatively more protected than forests in any other places