Pontes Industria is attentive to regional and global climate changes and, therefore, it 's been working hard to contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and to increase carbon capture.
The extraction of the carnauba straw, in addition to being a vital economic activity for the Northeastern region of Brazil, can also boost carbon capture by stimulating leaves' growth, caused by the extractive pruning.
In order to ground on scientific evidence, Pontes Industria, in partnership with the Federal University of Ceará, is sponsoring an unprecedented entitled “THE INFLUENCE OF THE EXTRACTIVE ACTIVITY OVER NATIVE CARNAUBA FORESTS REGARDING CARBON SEQUESTRATION”, under the umbrella of a master (MSc.) programme. The research seeks to evaluate the interference of the extractive activity on carbon sequestration, nutrient storage and biomass production in native carnauba ecosystems, thus being able to verify the positive influence of the activity in contributing to a better planet.
Plant ages will be estimated, sampling and determination of nutrients and carbon contents in the leaves and petioles, sampling and determination of mass, volume and length of roots, sampling and determination of soil nutrients and carbon contents. Quantification of total carnauba biomass by allometric equations. Data will be statistically analysed using mean and standard deviation. Analysis of variance, Test of comparison of means (Tukey) and tests of assumptions of homogeneity of the variances as well as the normal distribution of errors. Regression analysis for accumulation of carbon and other nutrients in soil in relation to the age range of the palm trees.
The research was started during the 2022 harvest and will last for a year and a half. Professors from the Soil Sciences department, master's and undergraduate students from the Agronomy course within the Federal University of Ceará are involved in the project, in addition to the monitoring by the team for Sustainability with Pontes Indústria.
