Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecological Indicators journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind Growth and survival of potential tree species for carbon-offset in degraded areas from southeast Brazil Vicente Toledo Machado de Morais Junior a, ⁎ , Laércio Antônio Gonçalves Jacovine a , Eliana Boaventura Bernardes Moura Alves a , Carlos Moreira Miquelino Eleto Torres a , Isabella Salgado Faustino a , Luciano Cavalcante de Jesus França c , Samuel José Silva Soares da Rocha a , Guilherme Ferreira Simiqueli b , Lauana Blenda Silva a , Ricardo Alcántara-de la Cruz d a Departamento de Engenharia Florestal, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa, Minas Gerais, Brazil b Departamento de Estatística, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa, Minas Gerais, Brazil c Departamento de Ciências Florestais, Universidade Federal de Lavras, Lavras, Minas Gerais, Brazil d Departamento de Química, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, São Carlos, São Paulo, Brazil ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Compensation Greenhouse gases Mitigation Restoration ABSTRACT Brazil must restore 12 million hectares of degraded areas by 2030 to meet its goal of the Paris Global Climate Agreement (PGCA). In view of this, the development of mixed planting projects related to carbon-offset in degraded areas is increasing, which demonstrates environmental and social responsibility of corporate and governmental organizations. Despite the great potential of mixed restoration plantations to mitigate climate change, Brazil must overcome major challenges in achieving the ratified goals of the PGCA as well as the ef- fectiveness of its carbon-offset projects. In this context, this study has focused on the evaluation of the growth and survival of tree species in a carbon-offset plantation from a degraded area in southeastern Brazil. Five- hundred-and-nine seedlings (15 forest species) were planted in a completely randomized design. Diameter at the soil level and height of individuals were measured at 40 months. Three individuals of each species were selected and was scaling by a non-destructive method. Timber volume was estimated from the sum of the volume of the sections of the individuals, obtained by the Smalian formula. The average annual carbon increment of the in- dividuals was estimated by the equation adjusted from the Schumacher & Hall model. The potential of carbon- offset of the tested plants was evaluated from the SP and μC analysis. The REML (Restricted Maximum Likelihood)/BLUP (Best Linear Unbiased Prediction) method was used to predict μC values for species ordering with carbon -offset potential. Survival was 47.54% at 40 months. The carbon stock of the planting was 2.60 ± 6.2 Kg C individual -1 , and the average annual increase in carbon (AAIC) was 0.78 Kg C in- dividual -1 year -1 . The AAIC value was lower than the average value stipulated for carbon-offset projects (6.0 Kg CO 2 individual -1 year -1 ). Pioneer species contributed more to carbon storage than non-pioneer species. 1. Introduction The Paris Global Climate Agreement (PGCA), launched in December 2015, is has the central goal of limiting the global temperature increase between 1.5 and 2.0 °C by 2100, compared to the temperature of the pre-industrial periods (Arantegui and Jäger-Waldau, 2018; Rogelj et al., 2016; Viñuales et al., 2017). The PGCA was ratified in December 2016 and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) were created so that participating nations to achieve their goals by formalizing commit- ments to GHG (Klein et al., 2017; UNFCCC, 2016; UNFCCC, 2017). Brazil, which owns a large forest extension, high agricultural pro- duction and hosts ecosystems of global relevance, plays a fundamental role in discussing the NDCs related to Land-Use Change and Forestry. According to the PGCA, Brazil aims to restore 12 million hectares with forests for multiple uses up to 2030. This goal is convergent with other objectives of the country such as the environmental regularization agenda of the Forest Code and achieving the Brazilian targets for bio- diversity (Brasil, 2012; Conabio, 2013; Brasil, 2015). Alongside these voluntary goals of the country, other initiatives referred to as “carbon- offset plantations”, which are gaining prominence in the climate change https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106514 Received 22 October 2019; Received in revised form 19 March 2020; Accepted 10 May 2020 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: vicente.moraisjr@ufv.br (V.T.M. de Morais Junior). Ecological Indicators 117 (2020) 106514 1470-160X/ © 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd. T