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Managing Forests to Store Carbon Poses Challenges Living forests currently absorb an estimated 16 percent of U.S. carbon emissions. However, thinning those forests to prevent fires releases large amounts of carbon.
Two studies appearing in the journal Ecological Applications present this dilemma to the U.S. Forest Service, according to the Associated Press.
While the agency has always made an effort to weigh timber production needs with the preservation of wildlife, it has more recently had to focus on preventing and controlling wildfires—which it accomplishes by thinning brush.
Burning forests release large amounts of carbon. But so does the practice of clearing forest for lumber or farmland. If Oregon forests are not logged or burned, concluded a study funded by the U.S. Department of Energy for the U.S. Carbon Cycle Program, they can double the amount of carbon they store over their lifetime.
A second study, funded by NASA, argued that the carbon released in the process of thinning forests to prevent fires was actually greater than the carbon released into the atmosphere in the event that they burned. That study’s authors, who used computer simulations to reach their conclusion, recommended that forests designed to store carbon should not be thinned for the next 100 years—making a distinction between preventing fires near homes and infrastructure and preventing fires to avoid carbon release. |
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