There is a very small amount (~0.5%) of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Earth's atmosphere. It acts like a sort of "blanket", keeping some of Earth's heat from escaping. Without this "greenhouse effect", Earth would be too cold for us to live. The amount of CO2 was the same for thousands of years, since the last Ice Age, because photosynthesis in trees and forests absorbed the CO2 emitted by animals (including humans). But for the last 200 years or so, humans have burned huge amounts of fossil fuels (oil, coal etc.) which had been stored underground for millions of years. This has upset the CO2 balance and is causing climate change.
Our Cockpit Country carbon sequestration calculations follow exactly the methodology used in the Final Report on Jamaica's Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory. (JGHGEI).
The areas of different types of land use (Primary Forest, Secondary Forest, Plantation Forest etc) were calculated using aerial photographs (2001) where available and otherwise using satellite images (1998).
These areas were then combined into six major forest classes as defined by JGHGEI.
The 82,000 hectares of forest shown above store a total of 11 million tonnes of carbon. That's equivalent to over 40 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. Let's keep it there!
In addition, the same 82,000 hectares of forest continue to absorb nearly a million tonnes of CO2 every year, with a value of:
J$896,557,912 (US$10,425,092) per year.
or
J$48,403,269,604 (US$562,828,716) over the next 100 years
Click on link for more-detailed calculations