Don’t Just Plant, Protect
By Samantha Dvorin, WellKind Forestry Intern
Samantha Dvorin was an intern for WellKind Forestry during our spring 2022 session, exploring old-growth forests and other environmental issues.
Old-growth forests are a spectacular sight to behold for visitors of national and state parks. The luscious leaves and massive trunks of the statuesque trees are a once-in-a-lifetime sight for many folks who don’t live in rural areas. The oldest and largest trees are the most impressive, but it’s not just because of their size.
For one, mature trees absorb more carbon dioxide than younger trees (Montaigne, 2019). All life on Earth consists of molecules centered on the sixth element of the periodic table, carbon. There is carbon all around us and in all living organisms, including humans, plants, and animals. However, we are disrupting Earth’s natural carbon cycle, and now there is more carbon in the atmosphere than there has been in millions of years. But why does this matter? Why does too much carbon in the atmosphere affect the environment?
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, so too many carbon molecules in the atmosphere trap too much-infrared radiation within it. There is a known correlation between the changes in temperature and carbon concentration in the atmosphere in the last 400,000 years (Gentes, 2015).
Thousands of years ago, these natural carbon fluctuations resulted from volcanic eruptions and ice ages, but now the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation are the major contributors to excessive amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But what can we do to slow these rising temperatures and tame the carbon in our atmosphere?
When people debate various solutions to our climate crisis, carbon sequestration is often a popular contender. It is the act of capturing carbon directly from the atmosphere and storing it. Trees are one of the most prevalent natural carbon sequesters, as a mature tree can absorb more than 48 pounds of carbon dioxide in just one year (Stancil, 2019). Planting new trees is necessary for the future, but they do not make much of a difference until they grow large enough to store large amounts of carbon. In an interview with Yale E360, William Moomaw stated, “As trees get older, they absorb more carbon every year, and because they are bigger they store more carbon.” (Montaigne, 2019). While the idea of reforestation is certainly a good one for the climate, focusing on protecting older trees is even more effective.
Not only does protecting mature trees and forests optimize carbon removal, but it also promotes biodiversity and provides a stable habitat and food source for many organisms. Mature oak trees produce up to 10,000 acorns to support and feed wildlife, while a young, newly planted sapling produces none (WELLKIND, 2021). These denser forests also improve water and air quality and prevent flooding and erosion that occurs when trees are sparse (Moomaw, et al., 2019).
In addition, proforestation, the practice of protecting existing forests and letting them grow to their full potential (Manrique, 2021), allows us to use dendroclimatology to better understand the effects that drought and moisture variability have on older trees. Dendroclimatology occurs when scientists use tree rings to study present and past climate events. A study of Blue Oak tree rings used dendroclimatology to study the moisture in trees and the effects of severe drought (Griffin, et al., 2014). Mature trees are used for this process and allow scientists to study moisture data from hundreds of years ago.
Forest thinning also puts these trees in greater danger during wildfires. If you have a more dense forest, you have lower ground temperatures, more atmospheric moisture, and lower wind air movement (“Why Thinning Forests,” n.d.). As a result, old-growth forests do not need thinning to protect them from wildfires as they already have natural processes in place (Bradley, et al., 2016).
Protecting old-growth forests is a crucial aspect of improving the carbon sequestration abilities of our Earth’s trees. As the atmosphere warms and climate change nears a place of irreversibility, greenhouse gas sequestration techniques have become even more important. Also, the value of biodiversity in ecosystems has become more apparent, and mature trees help support this diversity by providing safer habitat and food for wildlife. Denser forests give more protection while also slowing wildfire and flooding. Advocating against forest thinning and providing support for the protection of older trees is critical to teach others that not all forests have equal carbon-absorbing and storing potential.
References:
Forest Atlas. (n.d.). Retrieved March, 2022, from https://forest-atlas.fs.fed.us/
Forestry - plants. (2020). Retrieved March 14, 2022, from https://www.wellkind.org/forestry-the-importance
Gentes, Z. (2015, July 23). Balancing act: Marine sediments reveal past carbon cycle fluxes. Retrieved March, 2022, from https://oceanbites.org/balancing-act-marine-sediments-reveal-past-carbon-cycle-fluxes/
Griscom, B. W. (2017, October 16). Natural climate solutions - PNAS. Retrieved March, 2022, from https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1710465114
Montaigne, F. (2019, October 15). Why keeping mature forests intact is key to the Climate Fight. Retrieved March, 2022, from https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-keeping-mature-forests-intact-is-key-to-the-climate-fight
Moomaw, W., Masino, S., & Faison, E. (2019, June 11). Intact forests in the United States: Proforestation mitigates climate change and serves the greatest good. Retrieved March, 2022, from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2019.00027/full
Stancil, J. M. (2019, June 03). The power of one tree - the very air we breathe. Retrieved March, 2022, from https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2015/03/17/power-one-tree-very-air-we-breathe#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Arbor%20Day,and%20release%20oxygen%20in%20exchange.
Why thinning forests is poor wildfire strategy. (n.d.). Retrieved March 22, 2022, from https://westernwatersheds.org/gw-poor-wildfire-strategy/