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A call to reduce the carbon costs of forest harvest (www.nature.com)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by Treevan@aussie.zone to c/treehuggers@slrpnk.net

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Forests accumulate and store vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and protect biodiversity, giving them a defining role in controlling the global average temperature.

Writing in Nature, Peng et al. report the true carbon cost of wood harvests, which have reduced more carbon storage in vegetation and soils than any other practice except agriculture.

Economic modelling of the global carbon cost of harvesting wood from forests shows a much higher annual cost than that estimated by other models, highlighting a major opportunity for reducing emissions by limiting wood harvests.

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[–] aelwero@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

This seems backwards... If you harvest the forests, they get turned into lumber and paper and end up stored in stick built buildings and landfill, and the people who are harvesting that lumber are hands down the people who are generating the most trees, because they need them...

I live in the boonies, near a whole lot of public lands, and the difference between areas that logging is allowed and areas it isn't make it very obvious what impact logging has, and it isn't remotely what the narrative suggests. The areas where they allow logging are 100% forested, and the trees are literally stuffed in as tight as possible. Areas where logging isn't allowed have huge clearings, a lot more shrubbery, and way less trees. The natural areas have a lot more diversity of foliage, and more wildlife, but they're sequestering way less carbon...

Logging is a process of collecting a shitload of sequestered carbon, and making room for new growth to sequester more, which will be collected up again later. What you want is more lumber based construction, more logging, and more demand for the lumber industry to generate lumber, because lumber is sequestered carbon just like trees are... "Preserving the forest" is letting the carbon that's been sequestered just sit there...

I can't access the full article because paywall, but logging isn't eliminating any ability for forests to sequester carbon, it's assisting the process by storing carbon in buildings and those stupid ass paper straws.

[–] Treevan@aussie.zone 2 points 2 years ago

There are negatives to logging as well, lots of them.

But, sustainable harvesting (and wood) is about the best resource we have. Old growth is on another level entirely which is why the general consensus is to leave it alone, it's been damaged enough.

Here is a video that is literally the last video I watched in Newpipe that is somewhat relevant:

https://piped.video/watch?v=Tp3iL72wy4A

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I think the main point of the article is that the carbon storage in a forest is not mainly in the tree-trunks, but rather in the stuff around them, especially in the soil.

The typical way of harvesting commercial tree plantations is clear out and pretty much destroy all of that, and even if the area is replanted the remaining bio-mass is left to rot, which releases a lot of CO2.

I think the main problem is not logging itself, but the destructive way it is currently done to maximize profits.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 years ago

While earlier thinking did agree with this line of reasoning, my understanding based on other research I’ve read is that healthy, old forests sequester a lot of carbon, but that this ability is highly damaged by logging.

It’s also not necessarily true that carbon stored in lumber is safer or will stay there longer than carbon stored in forests. Many trees can live for hundreds or thousands of years—how many wood products last that long?

The reality is that this is a very complex issue, and it may depend on the forests in question as well as how the wood is used. I wish the article was accessible because I’m sure many of these issues are discussed in it.