A recent New York Times article details how forests around the globe are a major factor in absorbing carbon emissions. As was the case made in "The Forest Factor" healthy productive forests absorb vast amounts of atmospheric carbon. However, when trees and forests burn AND when they are killed by insects, disease, fire or storms, they release their stored carbon. We see in the aftermath of catastrophic fires like the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski in Arizona, that without our restoration efforts, it could take centuries for these lost treasures to recover on their own.
By APRIL REESE of Greenwire
Published: November 11, 2010
Forests in the Interior West could soon flip from carbon sink to carbon source, forest experts say.
The region's forests once absorbed and stored more carbon from the atmosphere than they released. But huge conflagrations -- like the 138,000-acre Hayman Fire in Colorado in 2002 and the Yellowstone fires of 1988, which scorched 1.2 million acres -- combined with a series of severe bark beetle infestations and disease outbreaks, have left large swaths of dead, decomposing trees in almost every major Western forest.
Those dead trees are releasing massive amounts of carbon dioxide, turning the region into a net emitter of carbon rather than a CO2 sponge.
Denver, CO (September 2, 2009). Hard times have hit our western rural communities and our forested landscapes. The loss of an economically-viable forest products industry has put our western forests and communities in great peril. As our new administration delivers a new vision for forests, the Western Forestry Leadership Coalition (WFLC) a group of state and federal forestry leaders released their new video and recommendations on how revitalizing the forestry sector will play a critical role in the restoration of our nations forests and economies.
MEDICINE BOW NATIONAL FOREST, Wyoming - From the vantage point of an 80-foot (25 meter) tower rising above the trees, the Wyoming vista seems idyllic: snow-capped peaks in the distance give way to shimmering green spruce.
But this is a forest under siege. Among the green foliage of the healthy spruce are the orange-red needles of the sick and the dead, victims of a beetle infestation closely related to one that has already laid waste to millions of acres (hectares) of pine forest in North America.
A survey finds three-quarters of Oregonians favor the logging of wildfire areas and planting of seedlings, an issue long debated.
Monday, August 29, 2005
MICHAEL MILSTEIN
Some three-quarters of Oregonians want federal forests restored after severe wildfires such as the 2002 Biscuit blaze by logging burned trees and replanting slopes with seedlings, a new poll has found.