ABSTRACT
This chapter presents summary data on carbon stocks in forests and slash-and-burn systems from nine of the ASE sites located in Brazil, Cameroon, and Peru. The relative importance of tropical forests in the global carbon cycle has been debated with several estimates of their contribution to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. One activity of the Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn Program project was to characterize the patterns of land clearing and subsequent land use at the different sites and to quantify the changes in carbon stocks associated with land clearing and establishment of different land use systems. Within national research institutions, carbon study research teams were organized and assisted through the development of standardized methods by scientists from ICRAF and the Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Programme. Carbon dynamics may be inferred from the proportion of carbon residing aboveground.
