First Global Assessment Of Soil Carbon In Grasslands by FAO released.

• Food and Agriculture Organisation recently released first Global assessment of Soil Carbon in Grasslands.
• It measured stocks of Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) in both semi-natural and managed grasslands.
  • SOC is carbon held within the soil that is measurable. It helps in improving soil biological, chemical, and physical properties, water-holding capacity, and structural stability.
  • SOC is a cost-effective nature-based solution to mitigate effects of climate change by reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide.
• It was funded by FAO LEAP Partnership, a multi-stakeholder initiative to improve environmental sustainability of livestock sector.
  • FAO LEAP is a multi-stakeholder initiative that seeks to improve the environmental sustainability of the livestock sector through harmonized methods, metrics, and data.
  • It leads a coordinated global initiative to accelerate the sustainable development of the livestock supply chain and to support coherent climate actions while contributing to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement.

Important findings

• Grasslands, contain approximately 20% of world’s SOC, have suffered losses because of human activities such as intensive livestock grazing, agricultural activities etc.
• Most of world’s grasslands have a positive carbon balance, meaning land is stable or well-maintained. However, negative carbon balance was found in East Asia, Central and South America, and Africa south of Equator.
• SOCs are not included in national climate plans due to lack of incentives for farmers to improve management practices and difficulty in accurately monitoring SOC stocks.
• Recommendations:
  • Improve geostatistical methods and data accuracy related to SOC,
  • Reversing grasslands loss by stimulating plant growth,
  • Capturing carbon in the soil, and
  • Protecting carbon in highly organic soils.
  • In livestock management, implementing rotational, planned or adaptative grazing measures for animals.

About grasslands

• These are open and continuous flat areas of grass.
• Found in all the continents except Antarctica.
• Two main kinds of grasslands: tropical and temperate.
• Examples -Prairies of North America, Pampas of South America, Veldt of South Africa, Steppes of Central Eurasia, and Downs in Australia.