Protect and Preserve the Forests
Forests are the single "tool" that can help us avert the worst effects of climate change.
Please click on the buttons below to learn more about each topic.
The older the forest, the more integral the ecosystem, the better the carbon absorption and retention. Forest soils are also incredible carbon sinks, thanks to the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF).
Burning wood pollutes as much as coal (it's the same stuff!) However, technocrats and lobbyists have classified it as 'clean and renewable' and are working to convince your elected officials of the same. The woody biomass for energy industry is subsidized by unknowing utility rate payers who want to see their forests preserved, not clear-cut for pellets.
Most States are eagerly putting forests into 'conservation.' However, this often only means that the land, currently forested, will not be paved over. These forests become 'working forests' and are actively managed. Experts agree that what we need now, for draw-down and biodiversity, is forest preservation.
Op Ed: Maryland Matters, 8/1/23:
Government officials need to do more to protect mature forests — and fight climate change
As industry does, the Forest Product and Woody Biomass for Energy Industries are continuously seeking expansion. However, during this climate emergency, it is key to let our trees grow old to generate self-balancing forest ecosystems. Forests have been kept artificially young for centuries through intensive logging and there is particularly high untapped potential for forests to accumulate more carbon over time if we simply allow them to continue to grow. It is on our elected officials to make the right decision and protect our forests for our future. The MFEAS is a good example on how industry is high-jacking the narrative. This PowerPoint presentation gives some insights on what to look for.
Tree shelters increase seedling survival by up to 40% and are key as we plant 1 Trillion Trees globally. Unfortunately, often tree shelters are abandoned in plantings, leaving them to strangle a young tree or to decompose into microplastics.
A Global Design Challenge would generate awareness and solve the problem of creating viable, affordable, and fully compostable tree shelter options for all afforestation projects across the globe. Please click on the button to see how we envision such a challenge.
The Wood Vault is hailed by some as a solution to climate change: let trees scrub our air clean, then cut them down and bury any wood not needed deep underground or in a mound to sequester the CO2. However, this approach generates perverse incentives for unnecessary logging in the carbon trade market and it removes trees that are actively working to draw down pollution and provide valuable habitat. Importantly, it ignores emissions from logging, soil-C loss, Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi die off, transportation, sorting, digging or building the vault, etc. Once all is said and done, it makes more sense to leave the trees in the forest to draw down CO2 and sequester it in the soils than to log them generating a lot of new emissions. Please click on the button to learn more!