Treeplanting offsets (Afforestation, and reforestation) are not what this article is about. It is about Improved Forest Management a technical term which includes protecting the forests or shifting away from clearcutting to a much much smaller AAC ecoforestry type operation: Improved Forest Management – Reduced Impact Logging (IFM – RIL) Improved Forest Management – [shifting from] Logged to Protected Forests (IFM – LtPF) Improved Forest Management – Extended Rotation Age (IFM – ERA) Improved Forest Management – Low to High Productivity (IFM – LtHP) Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation – Avoided Planned Deforestation (REDD – APD).
In IFM, climate benefits in stopping emissions are immediate and ongoing. One stopped clearcut can keep thousands of tonnes out of the atmosphere. It also could generate revenue—on top of all the climate, water, biodiversity and community benefits—but companies never try it because a) accounting of forest carbon has never been factored in nationally or provincially; b) the price of carbon isn't currently enough to challenge the money that flows with subsidized raw logs, c) the values back to communities and avoided costs of subsidizing the industry are never factored in either. (see Broadland's latest Forestry Doesn't Pay?)
Treeplanting is at the end of the forest carbon priorities. Tree planting is only going to have some kind of real climate benefit 200 years after the trees have caught up with all the emissions that were released with the clearcut. That is why they have not caught on and likely won't until we have addressed the real elephant in the room. If we charged every logging company what a tonne of carbon emissions are really worth, they would stop clear cutting tomorrow; waste in both the logging industry and construction industries would be a thing of the past; slashburns would be banned; so called wildfires would seen as extensions of poor forest management; and we would look at wood and forests with a whole new appreciation.
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The future in forestry we all need
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Treeplanting offsets (Afforestation, and reforestation) are not what this article is about. It is about Improved Forest Management a technical term which includes protecting the forests or shifting away from clearcutting to a much much smaller AAC ecoforestry type operation: Improved Forest Management – Reduced Impact Logging (IFM – RIL) Improved Forest Management – [shifting from] Logged to Protected Forests (IFM – LtPF) Improved Forest Management – Extended Rotation Age (IFM – ERA) Improved Forest Management – Low to High Productivity (IFM – LtHP) Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation – Avoided Planned Deforestation (REDD – APD).
In IFM, climate benefits in stopping emissions are immediate and ongoing. One stopped clearcut can keep thousands of tonnes out of the atmosphere. It also could generate revenue—on top of all the climate, water, biodiversity and community benefits—but companies never try it because a) accounting of forest carbon has never been factored in nationally or provincially; b) the price of carbon isn't currently enough to challenge the money that flows with subsidized raw logs, c) the values back to communities and avoided costs of subsidizing the industry are never factored in either. (see Broadland's latest Forestry Doesn't Pay?)
Treeplanting is at the end of the forest carbon priorities. Tree planting is only going to have some kind of real climate benefit 200 years after the trees have caught up with all the emissions that were released with the clearcut. That is why they have not caught on and likely won't until we have addressed the real elephant in the room. If we charged every logging company what a tonne of carbon emissions are really worth, they would stop clear cutting tomorrow; waste in both the logging industry and construction industries would be a thing of the past; slashburns would be banned; so called wildfires would seen as extensions of poor forest management; and we would look at wood and forests with a whole new appreciation.