Our plan for carbon dioxide removal needs
to prioritize protecting our old growth and mature forests. Our old
growth and mature forests store a huge amount of carbon and they
continue to sequester much more each year. Young trees will take
decades or even centuries to begin to store and sequester as much
carbon as the old trees.
Protecting large
trees - even the burned ones - helps to keep carbon in the forests
for years to come, while supporting natural re-growth, providing
habitat for wildlife, and nurturing biodiversity.
Removing larger,
older trees in post-fire “salvage” logging and
clear-cutting releases carbon quickly into the atmosphere, while
reducing the forest's ability to regenerate naturally. Fires only
destroy a small percentage of the burned trees carbon per this
recent research on forest fire impact on carbon storage in trees:
https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/huge-forest-fires-don%E2%80%99t-cause-living-trees-release-much-carbon-osu-research-shows
Thinning in forests equates to logging and removes
carbon quickly while not actually decreasing the chance of
wildfire. Thinning and logging our forests will hurt our climate
rather than helping it. We need to keep trees in the forest rather
than logging them. Please see a relevant scientific opinion here:
https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/op-ed/article262634247.html
Large trees
clear pollution from the air both globally and locally. It is
essential that we consider their preservation a key climate
strategy.