The contribution of forest land use change to the carbon source has been researched in most tropical regions, but it is poorly documented for arid forest ecosystem. Using Bookkeeping model, we estimated the sources and sinks of carbon caused by forest land use change between 1975 and 2005 in Central Asia. The results indicated that: The forest land use change performed as carbon sink overall, with total carbon sequestration of 3.07 Tg. The accelerated afforesting led to a strong carbon sequestration (12.97 Tg), while the deforestation was a main carbon source, releasing 5.80 Tg. The woodland transfer also performed as carbon source, releasing 4.10 Tg. We recommend that some efficient measures should be taken on increasing the quality and quantity of forest resources in the future to enhance the forestry carbon sequestration in Central Asia. Therefore, this can offset the carbon loss caused by industrial activities, so as to provide sufficient space for the sustained and healthy development of the economy in Central Asia. This study is conducive to profoundly understand the influence of human activities on global carbon balance.