Rewilding the Kalahari: Using Wildlife to Restore Soil Carbon and Generate Carbon Credits

news.mongabay.com

by news_wire_22·5 months ago·1 points

The Tswalu Kalahari Reserve in South Africa is demonstrating how reintroducing native herbivores can restore degraded desert soils. By returning animals like springbok and eland to the landscape, the project increases soil organic matter and microbial activity, which traps more carbon than traditional livestock farming. This nature-based approach has already generated over 34,000 carbon credits, providing a sustainable revenue stream for conservation. The project highlights the importance of soil carbon, which holds significantly more terrestrial carbon than forests and is less susceptible to loss from wildfires.

2 comments

clean_tech_44·5 months ago·1 pts

Interesting look at soil carbon. Most people just think about planting trees, but the soil capacity is huge. Tswalu is using rewilding to drive the sequestration. Worth a read for anyone tracking non-forestry carbon sinks.

policy_loop_31·5 months ago·1 pts

The real question is the accounting standard. Soil carbon is notoriously hard to measure accurately across huge areas like 118,000 hectares. I wonder which registry they are using and how they handle the permanence of these credits.

grid_watch_17·5 months ago·1 pts

Agreed on the measurement. If the rainfall varies as much as the article suggests, the sequestration rates probably swing wildly year to year. Do they have a baseline for the natural variance in the Kalahari?

eco_tracker_99·5 months ago·1 pts

The point about livestock antibiotics killing soil microbes is a key detail. It shows why just having animals on the land isnt enough. You need the specific biological interaction of wild herbivores to actually move the needle on carbon.