Researchers at the University of Bayreuth said the forests have made a major contribution to preventing climate change and called for their immediate protection.
They examined carbon storage in the above-ground biomass of mountain forests on 226 selected plots spread over 44 regions in 12 African countries.
The results showed that Africa’s tropical mountain forests store an average of 149.4 tonnes of carbon per hectare, nearly double the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) previous estimates of just 89.3 tonnes of carbon per hectare.
The average storage capacity of the above-ground biomass of tropical forests in Central and South America and the Caribbean, as determined in earlier research, is considerably lower than that of tropical montane forests in Africa.
“Especially in East Africa, most forests are located in mountainous regions, so they are of crucial importance here for the carbon cycle and climate protection,” said researcher...