Authors: Boeni, Ana Flavia; Rother, Débora Cristina;Nel, Lyndré;Centeri, Csaba;Tormáné Kovács, Eszter;

Soils can contribute to climate regulation through forest restoration. We present a case study which investigates the soil carbon stock across land-use types in rural areas undergoing natural regeneration seeking to determine the monetary value of carbon sequestered in the landscape to support payments for ecosystem services programs. We collected soil samples from 0 to 30 cm from degraded pastures, young natural regeneration, and conserved native forest in the Doce river basin, in south-eastern Brazil. With the soil bulk density and soil organic carbon we calculated each land-use carbon stock and converted it to CO2. Based on the current “Amazon Fund” value ($5.00.Cton-¹.ha-¹), we estimated the monetary value of soil carbon sequestration per hectare if degraded pasture areas were restored with assisted natural regeneration in 8 years, with the difference between carbon stocks averages. The main results show the average carbon stock in forests is higher (79.0±16.0 C.Mg.ha-¹) than in natural regeneration sites (64.6±10.4 C.Mg.ha-1) and pastures (57.6±10 C.Mg.ha-¹). Considering only the soil, the conversion of a pasture into a young forest could represent an income increase of $128.00 ha-¹ in 8 years, enabling the creation of a public payment scheme.