CARBON dioxide (C02), described as the chief offender by climate scientists, can also be described as a major driver of life on earth.
PETER MAKWANYA
This statement may sound self-contradictory, but a careful analysis would reveal that moderate quantities of carbon would help to drive life on the planet, but too much of it would be dangerous for the planet.
Unregulated destruction of forests may not be the chief contributor to global warming, but will definitely play its part.
As such, to moderate the supply of carbon on the planet, it’s necessary to keep most of it locked underground and this can be described as carbon farming.
When forests around the world are burned or destroyed, mega tonnes of carbon dioxide would be released into the atmosphere.
The concept of carbon farming, otherwise known as carbon sinks, are done to regulate carbon sinning, where carbon footprints are littered everywhere in polluting the atmosphere.
Green experts talk about carbon farming, especially in developing countries, where we have eco-freaks and trigger-happy people with no respect for the environment.
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Carbon farming has the potential to cleanse the atmosphere of excess carbon to manageable units, in order for developing nations to be able to feed their people and improve the quality of their natural ecosystems in their water-holding capacities, nurturing of humus and improving soil fertility.
As a result, nations will be able to feed themselves and improve their livelihoods together with environmental stewardship and milestones for adaptation programmes.
Noble as the idea of carbon farming might be, in developing countries, can we say to the people, let’s engage in carbon farming projects or we can do well by finding another user-friendly term?
In as much as we would want to catch up with the fast unfolding climate scenarios in the developed countries, its complex discourses sometimes retards our efforts to do so.
Another seemingly contradicting factor is that if we tell people to engage in forest farming, some developing countries appear to have more forests or bushes than they want and that they also need to clear for cultivation purposes, thereby releasing lots of carbon into the atmosphere.
The overall term that carbon farming is born out of is carbon sequestration, which even the climate literate are not at home with.
Carbon farming terms like zero-tillage, organic farming, and sustainable grazing plots and many related others are designed to keep carbon stocks locked under the ground, where it can stay put for many years.
But, as the people, mostly from the developing countries practice that, will they be aware about why they will be doing that?
Therefore, people need to be educated so they become carbon farming conscious.
Continuing engaging people blindly in these initiatives will witnesse massive failing outcomes of the projects in question.
Some challenges associated with carbon farming, especially in the form of tree-growing ventures, are that trees take so many years to grow and mature for sustainable harvests to take place.
But what the people will be having in their minds is the acquisition of the end product, which is forest harvesting, not energy invested under the ground.
As a country, in order to fully invest in carbon farming, it is important to begin with small-scale pilot projects that the local populations can manage and sustain.
Over-ambitious mega projects will obviously overwhelm and suffocate the participants and their efforts would come to naught.
These participants also need to know that, despite keeping carbon perennially locked underground, carbon farming also helps to improve soil fertility and enhance water conservation and retention to boost the underground ecosystems and build soils’ carbon banks for years.
During forest regeneration, when participating in carbon farming programmes, it is encouraged to engage in the planting of local native trees which are context specific and compliant to local soils and environmental conditions.
This will help in fixing the underground natural ecosystems and build moisture retention as well as the soils’ carbon efficiency.
In carbon farming, trees are also a necessary component in the grazing areas as their falling leaves decompose and add onto soil fertility, contributing to the growth of grass from the decomposed humus.
To continue keeping carbon trapped under the ground, moisture in the soils needs to be maintained so that the soils don’t get dry, and when the soil dries, it will release carbon into the atmosphere, which will, in turn, contribute to global warming.
Dry land cannot be maintained since it is not conducive to carbon farming.
Misguided practices like land grabs are not favourable to carbon farming as they lead to forest destruction, cutting down of trees for firewood as well as for selling, thereby reducing forest cover, which will, in turn, expose the bare ground.
Eclectic practices like purchasing the carbon credits are also not in the understanding framework of the people mostly from developing countries.
Carbon farming continues to be a favourable venture as an adaptation strategy, which improves the livelihoods of the people concerned.
This is when some climate experts would say that, carbon farming has the potential of feeding people while at the same time cooling the planet.
Therefore, excess carbon in the atmosphere needs to be removed and stored underground as organic matter.
