Contribution of different types of terrestrial protected areas to carbon sequestration services in China: 1980–2020

Exploring the contribution of protected areas to carbon sequestration services is meaningful to enhance the role of protected areas in climate change mitigation globally. However, less attention has been paid to the contribution of different types of protected areas to carbon sequestration services as well as their changes, which is not conducive to provide more effective solutions in the context of future climate change. Here, we identified the status and changes of carbon sequestration in different types of terrestrial protected areas in China and calculated the amount of carbon sequestration in different ecosystems in terrestrial protected areas and in different climatic zones. Our results indicated that carbon sequestration of China’s terrestrial protected areas had shown a significant increasing trend over the past 40 years (1980–2020) (R2 = 0.862, p