Forest plantation on degraded grassland in Uruguay
Context
Uruguay is a country in the southeastern region of South America, bordering Argentina to its west and southwest, and Brazil to its north and northeast. Natural grasslands are the most representative habitat of Uruguay. Grasslands cover around a quarter of the Earth’s land surface and provide a vital habitat for wildlife, supporting high levels of biodiversity.
However, this environment, mainly due to agricultural exploitation, has been degraded and modified over time, leaving only a few pristine areas. About 80% of Uruguayan territory is used for cattle ranching on natural and artificial savanna, and over-grazing with unequal distribution of cattle has degraded the natural vegetation.
Project
Located in the heart of Uruguay, this project turns 21,298 hectares of land that have been used for beef cattle grazing for over 300 years, to sustainable managed forests. The project will convert this land to forest plantations, for obtaining high-value, long-lived timber products and for sequestering large amounts of carbon dioxide.
The project area consists mostly of the grazing-degraded grassland. Associated with this there are lowland, humid zones, with richer biodiversity and higher conservation values. The forests will be planted on the grazing-degraded zones and the most valuable areas will be preserved.
Planted forests will remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in different carbon pools (living above-ground and below-ground biomass, soil organic carbon, litter and dead wood). Over the 60 year initial lifespan of the project, this project will sequester 7,644,973 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere.
Trees planted include Eucalyptus grandis, Eucalyptus dunnii and Pinus taeda and every 22 years usable timber products will be harvested. The carbon locked into trees that are removed are not included in the calculations for the total amount of avoided CO2.
By sustainably harvesting timber products from the forest plantation, the project will contribute to the poverty alleviation in a region of Uruguay with elevated levels of poverty, by providing job opportunities for local communities. Typically, an extensive livestock production system employs 1.4 people every 1,000 ha. The Guanaré Forest Plantation project is expected to multiply that figure by more than 20.
Verification
This project is verified by the Verified Carbon Standard and the Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standards. You can view it on the Verra Registry here.
Climate Solution #15
Tree Plantations (on Degraded Land)
Degraded lands present potential locations for tree plantations. Managed well, they can restore soil, sequester carbon, and produce wood resources in a more sustainable way.
Afforestation can take a variety of forms—from seeding dense plots of diverse indigenous species to introducing a single exotic as a plantation crop, such as the fast-growing Monterey pine, the most widely planted tree in the world. Whatever the structure, afforestation creates a carbon sink, drawing in and holding on to carbon and distributing it into the soil.
As of 2018, 294.1 million hectares of land were used for tree plantations on degraded land. Establishing tree plantations on an additional 112-174 million hectares of marginal lands can sequester 22.2-35.9 gigatons of carbon dioxide by 2050.