UNTOUCHED OLD GROWTH FORESTS - THEIR BENEFIT TO PLANET HEALTH AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Ruth Sandra Sperling
RSS Designs In Fiber - Internet Shop of Handmade Items In Fibers


There has been quite a bit of discussion about Climate Change or Global Warming for some years now.

I have always been concerned about the Forests on the Planet - and the Forest Canopy - and the Forest Biodiversity -- and have been very worried for years about the land being hotter and drier because the Forests and their canopies, which keep the land cooler, have been reduced so much by logging.

Here are two articles from Ecological Internet covering the issue of untouched Old Growth Forests storing more carbon dioxide than logged forests.

1. August 4, 2008 http://forests.org/blog/2008/08/untouched-natural-forests-stor.asp

2. March 11, 2009 http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2009/03/keeping_old_forests_intact_and.asp

The information in both Internet articles are based on scientific research.

I recommend reading them.

Of course, I remember reading the essay by Aldo Leopold, "The Last Stand" which discusses also that "slashed" (another word for clearcut) forests do not grow trees as healthy as un-slashed forests -- and he is basing this on data from a forested area in Europe, where part of it was slashed several hundred years ago and part of it wasn't -- and comparing the tree growth in both areas.

Aldo Leopold points out that it is the biotic province of the soil, which is a source of nutrients for growing trees, that is negatively impacted by the logging/slashing/clearcutting.

(You can contact the Aldo Leopold Fundation, http://www.aldoleopold.org/, for a copy of this essay.)

The whole situation worries me no end.

You can restore wild forests, but scientists repeatedly say that they never grow the same as the original Old Growth did -- at least not in our lifetimes as we know it -- even with restoration.

And now the research data about how important untouched Old Growth forests are in terms of carbon sequestration.

It all comes down to overall planet health.

We all need to be aware of what is occurring on our planet and do what we can to contribute to changing how things are handled.

As I have covered in previous posts on Forests here on my blog, http://rssdesignsinfiber.blogspot.com/search/label/forests , we need to totally stop the logging of any Old Growth.

Keeping these untouched Old Growth forests around the world in their natural state and unfragmented may be one of the best things we can do overall, planet-wise.

I know there are those concerned with Fire Hazard, especially because of the situation with the increasing Human population which tends to spread to forested areas. But cleaning up the underbrush and understory by hand, and not with mechanical equipment, like native peoples and aborigines have for centuries, is the solution to Fire Hazard in these untouched Old Growth forests -- much Old Growth trees are naturally fire-resistant and can withstand low intensity, natural fires - or the low-intensity prescribed fires done to mimic the natural fires.

No more logging of Old Growth.


Ruth