On this page: Introduction |Project Overview and Updates | Carbon and Biodiversity
Mafisa Livestock Grazing Carbon Project & Biodiversity Surveys
The Mafisa Livestock Grazing Carbon Project (MLGCP), in partnership with BRI and CarbonSolve, is a 1.26 million-hectare soil carbon project in southwestern Zambia. Working directly with local pastoral communities, the MLGCP is implementing rapid rotational grazing of livestock and fire management to reduce fire frequency and intensity in seasonally waterlogged soils. Using these management activities and the resulting vegetative response, the project expects to remove an estimated 36 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2–e) from the atmosphere over a period of 40 years.
Learn more about rotational grazing and fire management here.
In addition to the climate benefits of the MLGCP, the project activities are also expected to improve rangeland condition and health, and in doing so will bring biodiversity benefits to the project area. As with the CO2–e removals, benefits to biodiversity are monitored for change relative to a baseline that is also assessed by the project team.
Project Overview and Updates
Check out the slide deck below for a project overview and findings from our baseline biodiversity survey!
Carbon and Biodiversity
The promotion of carbon sequestration is key in efforts to decelerate and mitigate climate change, but also has co-benefits for other aspects of ecosystems. Over the forty years of the MLGCP, the project aims to monitor change in soil carbon storage and biodiversity as a result of altered grazing and fire pressure.
Biodiversity will be examined with a focus on species richness and diversity indices, examining change in forage quality and quantity, and change in the abundance and distribution of focal taxa over time, including dung beetles, birds, and mammals. The initial step in this process is to establish a baseline for both soil carbon and biodiversity from which change over time can be assessed through periodic monitoring over the life of the project as changes in grazing practices are implemented.
Efforts are focused on setting the baseline by quantifying the diversity and abundance of 1) vegetation, 2) grasshoppers and dung beetles, 3) all birds, and 4) small to large mammals.
Photo Credits: Header photo © BRI-Ed Jenkins
