Saving the Forest For the Climate…and Other Reasons
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 11.28.06
Have you noticed how carbon “offsetting” or trading is becoming mainstream, with stories making it into the mass media? States like California , and even cities like Boulder CO, USA are designing programs which may interact with carbon offsetting. In Europe, the focus is on how to ensure that continent-wide systems for carbon trading or “offsetting” perform well. The culture of forest ownership is also in a period of rapid change, independent of carbon management initiatives. Because trees are where we want much of that 'offset carbon' to go, and to stay for many decades, we need to keep our TreeHugging eyes on forest stewardship. Seeing the forest for the carbon, right? Using North America as our example, we refer you to Lloyd's recent post which documents a recent downside of forest change: accelerated clearing of the Boreal Forests to make non-recyclable butt wipe. (A bit of hyperbole, but true on it's face!) On the positive side, forests in the “lower-50” have been overall on the mend, not so much by modern intent but due to long term shifts in land ownership and markets. Mostly the recovery of US forests is a matter of land having been divided into plots so small is it increasingly less cost effective to harvest in industrial quantities, while populations concentrate in urban centers.
Brief background:- After an intensive period of logging spanning roughly the 1890’s to 1920, huge swaths of forestland in the Midwest and Northeastern US states were abandoned to fire and unsustainable farming practices. In the decades that followed, much of this formerly forested land could be had for the paying of back taxes. During and after this era, US-based forest product companies aquired vast tracts of forest land to support their supply chains. To their credit, some engaged in wide scale replanting.
By the 1990’s, and in the face of increased global competition, much of the forest product industry moved away from the US Pacific Northwest, Midwest, and Northeastern states, focusing upon the verdant Southeastern US, with the Canadian Boreal band serving as a second supply frontier.
The Present:- The most recent upheaval in North American forest lands involves those same companies selling their forestland holdings, in total, to Real Estate Investment Trusts or “REIT’s.” Liquidation for the sake of the balance sheet. Fortunately, some of the sold lands were taken into conservancy, but there’s far more land that went on the block than could ever be purchased or leased for conservation purposes. The upshot is that, on many millions of acres, premium lots have been, or will be, ultimately sold as small recreational plots (some of which will host homes of designs much admired by our readers). Some portion of the land will be held by the REITs, for who knows what purpose or for how long?
Going Forward:- Let's return to the carbon off-setting ideas of our opening paragraph. How can bottom-line focused real estate “trusts,” whose managers may not have signaled their forest stewardship intent, be expected to help sustain forest resources and thus balance the planet's carbon budget favorably, for the long term? The answer is, they must be given a strong incentive if we expect them to manage forests with climate objectives in the mix. The corollary question is: how would those who buy smaller parcels from the trusts, as well as the heirs of those small parcel holders, also maintain carbon sequestration efficacy? (Trees can outlive people.)
We think we have a seedling of an answer. The sprout involves designing state and local ordinances that provide direct tax incentives, derivative of models such as the forest crop tax law administered by the state of Wisconsin. Fortunately, to reach seedling status, this idea would not involve the US Federal government, which seems primarily focused on how to get more wood cut, period.
The forest crop tax law derivative approach offers the option of allowing city-dwellers to own land and receive a tax advantage for sequestering carbon, while not neccessarily disrupting the generation-spanning access traditions of local hunters, hikers, boaters, and fishermen. TreeHuggers need not be the enemies of local people, regardless of respective beliefs about climate science. And, tax incentives for forest land owners can have benefits beyond those originally envisioned in forest land tax laws created a generation ago.
i agree that we need to reduce our footprint on the earth for more than human sake.
but forests arnt the answer to a carbon sink. it seems logical that trees hold alotta carbon/acre but the fact is, they dont and they bleed the soil of carbon in the process. dont believe me? http://biopact.com/2006/11/idea-that-forests-are-carbon-sinks-no.html
dont believe them either?
http://www.geology.iastate.edu/gccourse/chem/carbon/text.html
anyone that has spent time trying to grow on forest soil knows this fact all too well. its fire and perennial forbs and grasses than builds carbon into the ground. dont believe me? http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v442/n7103/full/442624a.html
its carbon that makes soil black. its carbon that gives soil fertility. its carbon that we are adding to our gardens in the form of compost to grow the super duper huge peppers. carbon is far too valuable a fertilizer to be just smoked up into the sky.
perennial grass farming sinks carbon y/y into the soil. charcoal soil additions can do this. some sort of hybrid biomass to energy and charcoal system could do this. in my opinion, sinking carbon into the soil is the process that moves organic farming closer to the energy producers, closer to the city waste streams, closer to manufacturing... we want to close the biological carbon cycle. to do that closing, taking carbon and directly placing it into the soil is how we can best do that.
another interesting way of using up carbon is green chemistry. imagine a car made up of carbon fibre, light weight and strong, made up of harvested carbon in the form of plants. or ur clothes, ur driveway, or anything else that can be made of carbon.
but trees??? they are good for shade yes, but they arnt so good at removing carbon from the ATM.
=== author's response follows ====
Speaking as someone who grew up in a northern temperate forest and who has spent considerable time in the UP of MI and Canadian boreal forests, the soil in Gods Country is seldom "black". The typical boreal zone soil horizon is often an inch or so deepat most, which is why so many dairy farms went bankrupt after trying to eke out a living in the north -- its just not productive enough. The carbon fixed in northern forests is primarily in the canopy and stems of woody shrubs and trees, not at all like the 12 foot deep root zone of tall grass prairie. To compare the carbon fixing properties of these very different ecotones, northern forest versus grassland, directly is apples and oranges thinking (personal experience based).
if forests arnt true carbon sinks, why would planting them help to sink carbon? the answer is, you wouldnt.
i am also from 'god's country'. and as you have stated that the soil horizon is very thin and poor. sooooo...u are agreeing with me on the facts? that there is no carbon in the soil, ie is low in fertility.
"Because trees are where we want much of that 'offset carbon' to go, and to stay for many decades, we need to keep our TreeHugging eyes on forest stewardship. Seeing the forest for the carbon, right?"
wrong. ur not seeing the real carbon cycle. maybe im not making myself clear. the forest is sucking carbon from the soils at a faster rate than they are sucking carbon from the air. so in essence, forests do not offset carbon emissions. i know its radical, but the data absolutely supports that. ur own experences support that.
im not telling u to cut down all the forests and plant prairie, im just saying that one needs to make an argument based in fact.
ur argument is that carbon offsets should pay for forests. but forests arnt carbon sinks. so why should offsets pay for forests? im sorry but the whole premise of the argument is wrong.
I don't think carbon offset schemes that plant trees are the solution to the core problem, but they are a positive part of the package. We have to reduce, reuse and recycle to a point that achieves balance but while that is happening offsetting helps.
Increasing the amount of land covered in trees will help in many respects, not just by sucking up some of the carbon but also by reducing soil erosion, encouraging other flora and fauna and giving more people access to green areas.
But as with any opportunity there will be good and bad operators. Any decent offset scheme should have forest stewardship certification or similar awards.
We need sites like Treehugger to point us in the direction of the good offset schemes and help us avoid any damaging operators should they arise.
In response to Brian Hans' posted comments.
1) "but forests arnt the answer to a carbon sink. it seems logical that trees hold alotta carbon/acre but the fact is, they dont and they bleed the soil of carbon in the process"
Your references don't support either of these assertions. From your own references, (http://www.geology.iastate.edu/gccourse/chem/carbon/text.html) Figure 1 shows that the top 5 major world forest systems hold on average between 200-300 metric tons of Carbon/ha (storing carbon at about a 50/50 split between vegetation and soil). Further the article indicates "that forest regrowth in the US currently sequesters some 209 MtC annually -- about 14% of US CO2 emissions. However, the report notes that this rate of sequestration is slowing as these regenerating forests reach maturity."
The other article you reference, http://biopact.com/2006/11/idea-that-forests-are-carbon-sinks-no.html, is somewhat misleading and does not clearly represent the findings of the scientific journals referenced in that article. Essentially those scientific studies found that while "nearly all of the ecosystems in this study represent net sinks for atmospheric CO2"... there was significant seasonal variation in the balance between carbon uptake (through primary productivity -- tree growth) and carbon release (through respiration). They further concluded that "biometry indicated storage of 1.6 ± 0.4 megagrams (tons) of carbon per hectare per year over 8 years, 60% in live biomass and the balance in coarse woody debris and soils."
2) "anyone that has spent time trying to grow on forest soil knows this fact all too well. its fire and perennial forbs and grasses than builds carbon into the ground. dont believe me? http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v442/n7103/full/442624a.html"
This article essentially argues that proper estimates of Amazonian rainforest sequestration need to include the impact of disturbance induced losses. It still indicates that the Brazilian rainforest is a net carbon sink. This article does not mention anything about perennial grasses etc., so I don't see what point you're trying to make here by referencing this article.
3)"but trees??? they are good for shade yes, but they arnt so good at removing carbon from the ATM."
It appears to me that you are confusing the sink potential of established, mature forest-ecosystems and the carbon sequestration potential of re- and afforestation projects. While mature forest ecosystems do slowly continue to grow and store carbon they have essentially reached an equilibrium state where the net carbon absorbed is approaching the net carbon released.
NEW forestation projects in regions that have either been deforested, or currently are filled with invasive shrublands that do not represent significant biomass, can and do contribute significantly to overall carbon sequestration (as is clearly supported by every (scientific) article to which you provided a link).
=== author's response follows ====
Thank you for the synopsis. Another way of thinking about the equilibrium of mature forests is in the conservation dimension. If you cut them down and put them into an degrading situation (e.g. toilet paper) a huge amount of CO2 is liberated more rapidly than the rate at which it will be reincorporated into biomass in the slow growing boreal forests. Intuitively, we can understand that this is not good for the climate.