Restoring forests = more storage for carbon

When wildfires burn up forests, they don’t just damage the trees. They destroy a key part of the global carbon cycle. Restoring those trees as quickly as possible could tip the scale in favor of mitigating severe climate change.

Lisa A. McCauley, a spatial analyst at The Nature Conservancy, explains how quick action to thin out vegetation will actually increase carbon storage in forests by the end of this century. Her new paper is published in the Ecological Society of America’s journal Ecological Applications, and she will present the findings this August at ESA’s 2019 Annual Meeting in Louisville, KY.

“With predictions of widespread mortality of western U.S. forests under climate change,” McCauley states, “our study addresses how large-scale restoration of overly-dense, fire-adapted forests is one of the few tools available to managers that could minimize the adverse effects of climate change and maintain forest cover.”

Forests are a vital carbon sink – a natural sponge that pulls carbon out of the atmosphere through plant photosynthesis. Because carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from human activities are a major cause of climate change, forests do humanity a huge service by disposing of much of its gaseous waste.

Source: http://Restoring forests means less fuel for wildfire and more storage for carbon