THE USE OF HALOPHYTES TO SEQUESTER CARBON

Wild salt tolerant plants, halophytes, could be grown on 130 x 10(6) ha of potentially arable land in the world's coastal deserts, inland salt deserts and areas of' secondary salinization in irrigation districts. Halophytes have potential as biomass crops to directly sequester up to 0.7 Gt C, similar to tree plantations, or they can play an indirect role in absorbing C from the atmosphere by providing food, fodder and energy crops from a new land base. To the extent new cropland can be developed from unused saline land, further land clearing and loss of C storage in forest fallow and old growth forests can be spared, thereby adding to the carbon sequestering potential of all usable ecosystems.