| Comment | Dear Chairman Nichols,
As you reconsider the alternatives to cap-and-trade in meeting the
goals of A.B. 32, please also reconsider your board's decision to
allow even-aged forest management (i.e. clearcutting) to be allowed
in forestry "offset" projects.
The ARB's cap-and-trade program should not reward landowners for
clearcutting their forests, directly or indirectly.
As you know, even-aged management releases enormous quantities of
CO2. In essence, the currently adopted forestry protocol gives
license to landowners to degrade water quality and reduce its
quantity across vast regions of the state while releasing tons of
CO2 into the atmosphere.
For the sake of all Californians, and especially for the
generations who will be coming of age at a time of increasing
climate uncertainty, please fix the forest protocol to prevent
clearcutting, including "leakage" of even-aged management practices
to areas outside the approved-project boundaries.
Sincerely,
Joe Loree
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