Performance of different high altitude plant species was observed in avalanches affected area at the top of Jawahar Tunnel (3200 m amsl) situated on Jammu-Srinagar National Highway near Banihal, J & K.
The increasing lelvel of green house gases in general and carbon dioxide in particular has raised concerns about the vulnerability of human, animal and plant life. Forests though serve as sources and sink of the CO2, there is need to synthesize the impact of climate change on forests and the role of forests in global carbon cycle.
Forestry CDM projects involving afforestation and reforestation offer opportunities for CO2 mitigation by removal of accumulated CO2 in atmosphere and sequester it in vegetation, soil and wood products.
Global warming risks from emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) by anthropogenic activities have increased the need for the identification of ecosystems with high carbon sink capacity as an alternative mitigation strategy of terrestrial carbon sequestration. The agroforestry sector has received recent attention for its enormous potential carbon pools that reduce carbon emissions to the atmosphere. The Nubra Valley (Trans-Himalayan region) is covered with more than 575,000 agroforestry plantations (willow and poplar). These species have been found to sequester more than 75,000 tonnes of carbon.
Climate change and forests are intrinsically linked. On the one hand, changes in global climate are already stressing forests through higher mean annual temperatures, altered precipitation patterns and more frequent and extreme weather events. At the same time, forests and the wood they produce, trap and store CO2, play a major role in mitigating climate change.
The changes undergone by physico-chemical properties of soil, profile morphology and the productivity index, as a result of bringing the barren land under Poplar plantation, were evaluated in Yamuna Nagar District of Haryana, where large chunks of land have been raised as block plantation with Poplar. The soils supporting Poplar plantations were enriched with organic carbon and nutrients.
Agroforestry that envisages integration of trees, herbaceous crops and/or animals on the same land unit, holds promising potential in Punjab to diversify traditional rice-wheat rotation.
A study was conducted to estimate the soil organic carbon pool under Eucalyptus, Poplar, Shisham and Teak plantations in Haridwar and Dehra Dun, districts of Uttarakhand and Yamunanagar District of Haryana State.
India has growing shortages of timber and wood-based products. Agro-forestry plantations promoted by wood-based industries and raised by a large number of small farmers and imports play a major role in bridging the demand supply gap. Private sector companies like Wimco and ITC have played a major role in promoting technology based high yielding clonal plantations under agro-forestry on commercial scale.
