Mapping Potential Areas for Conservation Under Forest Carbon Credit Eligibility in a Natural Protected Area in Northern Mexico

Emerging carbon markets are posing new challenges for stakeholders. In order to operationalize the selection of feasible areas to promote above-ground carbon capture and quantify its potential as claimed in the norm NMX-AA-173-SCFI-2015, a methodology may be proposed. Above-ground tree biomass geospatial estimates at the pixel level, neighboring land cover, and legal information were combined in order to obtain the potential for above-ground carbon capture. Forest above-ground tree carbon capture estimates were conducted under the assumption that forest cover in bare soil land will be recovered to the most conserved neighboring vegetation type. This approach may be used in other situations around the world where potential carbon estimates are required to design forest carbon capture projects considering native vegetation type.