"This is important from a climate change perspective because if you actually have a look at the amount of emissions from these fires it's actually quite substantial." But Mackey said most of the carbon is in the woody biomass and soil, which is not burnt in fires. And he said logging actually increases the risk of fire by opening up the forest, increasing the amount of fuel on its floor, and drying the forest out. Mackey said another common misunderstanding is that younger growing forests sequester more carbon than mature forests. He said while growing forests have a greater rate of carbon uptake, it's more important to look at the total amount of carbon stored in a forest. Since carbon is emitted much more rapidly than it is sequestered, Mackey said the best way to sequester carbon forests is to protect existing old forests. "If you take one of these mature [mountain ash] forests with 1900 tons of carbon in it and trash it ... it's going to take hundreds of years to grow back that amount of carbon." Related Links: Treehugger: Tropical Deforestation Brings Economic Boom, Followed by Human & Ecological Bust |
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