A recent letter to the editor opposing a new program to protect forestlands has some misinformation.
Smaller trees may store carbon at a faster rate, but they’re much smaller, so older trees still store more carbon. Young trees store carbon at a faster rate, but their total mass is small. It’s the total mass of carbon that matters. Older trees store more carbon in total than young trees. In some species, 75 percent of the carbon is stored after the tree is 50 years old.
Timber production produces significant emissions, making it much less effective at carbon storage than the timber industry claims (Hudiburg et.al, 2019). About 45 percent of carbon is left on sight as slag, another 25 percent is lost at the mill, and the rest, as mentioned, continues to decay regardless (Koberstein and Applegate 2019). “While milled wood products do store carbon, they do so for far fewer years than the forest itself, and wood products emit carbon as they break down. Cutting forests on shorter cycles causes soil to lose stored carbon, while undisturbed forest soils hold massive quantities of carbon for thousands of years.
Letting our forests grow older before harvest reduces these impacts, as well as supports biodiversity and clean water. Likewise, protecting old growth and mature forests from logging is key to climate-smart forestry, as harvest of old forests emits carbon dioxide that isn’t reabsorbed for centuries” (Swedeen and Baker, Seattle Times commentary, 2021).
“The world’s forests play a far greater and more complex role in tackling the climate crisis than previously thought, due to their physical effects on global and local temperatures, according to new research” (Lakhani, “The world’s forests do more than just store carbon,” March 2022).
Kate Lunceford
Bothell
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