The Draft 2022 Scoping Plan should enable the
removal of more carbon dioxide by forests than it does. The carbon removal should
happen now.
The preferred NWL alternative 3 calls for more
forest thinning as the only forest-related action. In the short-term thinning
will result in more greenhouse gas emissions. Every tree removed is
carbon lost. Were
there to be a fire, only roughly 3% of the tree carbon burns. Thinning removes far more
carbon than if all the thinned areas burned.
Furthermore, fuel reduction may or may not
reduce fire intensity.
Many studies have shown it doesn’t. The plan assumes that fuel
reduction will result in more resilient carbon-rich forests in the
long-term, but it’s not proven. If it were successful, the
improvement would happen to late for us to address the climate
crisis.
Forest management practices should be modified
so that they don’t produce dense young flammable stands of
trees and can begin to increase carbon storage rather than detract
from it by:
·
Increasing the length of
plantation rotation cycles
·
Reducing or eliminating the
amount of new even-aged harvesting such as clearcut
·
Eliminating salvage logging and
instead retaining dead trees, which store carbon for decades,
retain moisture, provide habitat for more wildlife than live
trees.
·
Retaining more mature
trees.
Lastly, electric utilities should be
required to insulate their bare wire distribution lines rather then
remove millions of trees that could be sequestering and storing
carbon.
In summary, many existing forest management
practices as well as our preferred ways of responding to fire and
antiquated utility equipment increase carbon dioxide. Instead
California needs to stop thinning forests and prohibit salvage
logging and the removal of millions of trees by electric utilities.
California should promote forest management practices that result
in more stored and sequestered carbon now.