Editor:
Much is said about planting trees to aid carbon sequestration. What is not said but imperative to understand is that trees alone are not the answer, they are simply the most visible part of the answer. The answer to climate warming and carbon sequestration is the eco “system.” This is a systemic process and removing any part of the system reduces the end result.
Take fungi out of the forests by clearcut logging and you reduce the connectivity of the entire system. Remove the coarse woody debris or fallen logs and you do the same. Trees are important no doubt but if we damage their supportive systems and destroy the integrity of their community, we fundamentally reduce the benefits of these natural systems.
It is extremely important to understand that planting trees is an incomplete and insufficient answer. Retention of integral ecosystems is the key. This is why the recent assertion, by a registered forestry professional (who was quoting a provincial report), that about 23 per cent of our forest is old growth is both true and yet misinformed. While technically, roughly 23 per cent of our forest is old growth, much of that is alpine, marsh and otherwise “unmerchantable.” As for our world-renowned and hugely valuable lower elevation big timber, most of it is gone, along with its massive potential for carbon sequestration.
It is time to speak truth to these commercial powers, time to end the rape of our forests! Time to value the forest, plants, trees, fungi, bacteria, insects, lichen, mosses – they are all required for this system to offer us the benefits we so badly need. We must develop a conservation plan that recognizes the different plant ecosystems and each of these very different systems must be represented in our protected inventory.
Andrew Sloss, Roberts Creek
