Carbon benefits from protected areas in the conterminous United States

Table 3 Carbon benefits (Gg, 1 Gg=10 ⁹ g) corresponding to area changes in Table 1

¹ State-level carbon benefits were estimated for forests in the protected areas compared to what could be emitted if there were no protection based on forest area lost rates in the corresponding state’s forests outside of protected areas. All carbon units are in gigagrams (Gg).
² The predicted reduction in emissions of carbon (C), and additional C fixed if current net forest area loss rates were reduced by 20% in the 48 states’ unprotected forests.
³ See Table 1 for net deforestation rates in protected and unprotected forests in each state.
⁺ 13 Southern states (see Figure 2).
^* 11 Western states. The remaining states were in the Northern region.
^# States where forest area loss rates in the protected forests were larger than those in the unprotected forests. Therefore, calculation of presumed additional area loss in the protected forests using forest area loss rates in the corresponding unprotected forests (i.e., within the same state) were not applicable (NA).
^$ States gained forest areas during the period, thus, reduction in forest area loss is not applicable (NA).

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