Carbon sequestration can be defined as the capture and secure storage of carbon that would otherwise be emitted to or remain in the atmosphere. The idea is:

a. To keep carbon emission produced by human activities from reaching the atmosphere by capturing and diverting them to secure storage;

b. To remove carbon from the atmosphere by various means and store it.

Most of the rural community is unaware of sequestration and its importance. There is need to generate awareness regarding climate change, adopt agroforestry among communities and enhance the capacity of local institutions towards combative measures. Communities need to be convinced that agroforestry will be helpful in maintaining the ecological balance, increase the income of farmers, create employment opportunity throughout the year and also that farmers can earn benefits in the form of ‘Carbon credit’ if plants will survive for a longer term. Engagement with local communities is very useful in developing a mitigation action that will work best on the ground.

Agriculture is the mainstay of livelihood in the Bundelkhand region. Earlier, this region had one of the finest forests in the country and all its fuel, food and fodder needs were met from this local resource. The situation is steadily deteriorating due to deforestation and mismanagement of natural resources. Bundelkhand is now characterized by acute shortage of fuel wood and animal fodder. Due to deforestation, approximately 1000 million tonnes of carbon are emitted to the atmosphere every year globally in the form of carbon dioxide. This is about 15% of the total carbon emission caused by humans and is a significant portion of the global carbon cycle that contributes to global climate change. The idea of mitigating it through forest conservation and management was discussed as early as in the 1970s. Trees are known to play a crucial role in almost all terrestrial ecosystems and provide a range of products and services to both rural and urban people. As natural vegetation is cleared for agriculture and other types of development, the benefits provided by trees are best sustained by integrating trees into agriculturally productive landscapes, a practice known as agroforestry. To mitigate the effect of carbon emission, agroforestry is useful in the existing farming system. In the context of carbon cycle, agroforestry plays an important role in carbon dioxide sequestration due to several reasons. The first is that trees fix and store carbon from the atmosphere via photosynthesis and since trees are a perennial component in the system, they can function as active carbon for the period of many years and continue to store carbon until either they are harvested or they die. The second reason is that agroforestry provides a good surface cover which minimizes the losses of nutrients from the surface soil, improves edaphic conditions, increases biomass production, provides a protective ground cover through tree and crop cover and decreases the risk of soil degradation by erosion, leaching and nutrient depletion. Such favourable trends enhance soil resilience and lead to overall improvement in the soil organic pool. With adequate management of trees under agroforestry systems, a significant fraction of the atmospheric C could be captured and stored in plant biomass and in soil. The average C storage by agroforestry has been estimated as 9, 21, 50 and 63 Mg C/h in semi arid, sub humid, humid and temperate regions, respectively. In many agroforestry systems, C sequestration is a dynamic process and can be divided into two phases. On establishment, many systems are likely to be the source of GHGs (loss of C and N from vegetation and soil). Then follows a quick accumulation phase and a maturation phase when tonnes of C are stored in the boles, stems and roots of tress and in the soil. The present stock of carbon in the Indian soil (63,19 Petagram) is just 4.2% of the world; therefore, there is scope of additional C sequestration of 21.85 Petagrams.