Carbon bonds, a sustainability alternative in the Chimborazo Fauna Production Reserve

Abstract

Payments for environmental services are part of a new and more direct conservation paradigm, which explicitly recognizes the need to create bridges between the interests of landowners and service users. Thus, the soil of the Chimborazo Fauna Production Reserve is a carbon reservoir. Then, it is here where there is a need to conduct scientific studies on its carbon storage capacity under different types of vegetation coverage. For this purpose, researchers elaborated cells for each ecosystem with the help of a geographic information system employing geoprocessing tools; a total of 819 sampling sites were established in 58560 ha. The samples were taken at a depth of 0 cm - 30 cm, and the results were entered into a database in ARC GIS, where a mask was created, extrapolating the carbon content in the entire reserve area. As a result, a higher C content was evidenced in the evergreen forest (BsSN01) and grassland (HsSn02) of the moorland, with 378.16 Mg of organic carbon (OC) and in total, 4 379581.43 Mg of OC that can be offered to the international market in carbon bonds. In this sense, it is necessary to evaluate from an economic-environmental perspective the ecosystem services that the Chimborazo Wildlife Production Reserve offers, in this case, as a carbon store in the soil, so that the economic stimuli are attractive for landowners.