Mature forests do more for climate, wildlife, water
By John Talberth / For The Herald
A recent commentary (“Keep state’s working forests in climate change fight,” The Herald, March 18) gets it dead wrong: Forests that are left to grow, big, tall and old capture and store far more carbon and emit much less than those repeatedly hammered by clearcutting, logging roads, chemicals and slash burning and replanted with monoculture tree plantations.
In fact, research published by scientists at Oregon State University and the University of Idaho has repeatedly found that industrial logging activities are a leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in Oregon and Washington state and that intensive logging leaves the landscape far more vulnerable to wildfires, floods, heat waves and water shortages than natural forests.
No amount of spin by timber industry lobbyists can change this scientific reality. Washington’s Department of Natural Resources needs more, not less authority to allow our public forestlands to be put in service of fighting the climate crisis while still producing revenue streams and economic benefits enjoyed by all Washingtonians.
Managed as real forests, and not tree farms, Washington forestlands can pull in and store carbon from the atmosphere better than any terrestrial ecosystem on the planet. Freely available forest carbon data shows that unlogged forestlands in Western Washington can pull in many times more carbon than they release from mortality, including wildfires. In contrast, heavily logged DNR and corporate lands barely break even, if that. This dramatic loss of natural carbon sequestration capacity means that carbon once being taken out of the atmosphere is now being left there, helping to drive an increasingly catastrophic climate crisis.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-mature-forests-do-more-for-climate-wildlife-water/