Vermont's most precious and effective mechanism for countering climate change is our forested landscape, says the October 2007 Final Report and Recommendations of the Governor's Commission on Climate Change.
It's a straightforward connection. Global warming is caused by increasing levels of carbon dioxide (among other greenhouse gases).
Trees (and through them woodland soils) pluck carbon from the atmosphere and store it for decades. Their very cell walls are chock full of the stuff.
There it stops being straightforward, especially in the working forests which make up so much of our state. That's because forestry practices themselves can affect how much carbon a stand of trees holds, or releases. Managing our forests with carbon in mind, while conserving forest habitats and other ecosystem values, will be the topic of an upcoming talk sponsored by the Bennington County Sustainable Forest Consortium (BCSFC).
On Thursday, March 27, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Hildene Visitors Center, BCSFC will host a presentation by Michael Snyder on carbon, forests, and forestry. Snyder has been the Chittenden County forester since 1997. He is a Lecturer in Forestry at the
University of Vermont and a freelance writer. (Snyder is the "Woods Whys" columnist for Northern Woodlands Magazine.) The event is free and open to the public.
Until fairly recently, talk about forests in the context of global warming has been one-sided and all about the negative impact of climate change on our trees. Sugar maple will move northward to Canada. Mild winters will permit hemlock wooly adelgid to survive in southern Vermont. Mile-a-minute vine will reach our borders and overwhelm us. Oriental bittersweet will strangle our oaks and ashes.
But, as we'll learn from Snyder, the trees can throw a few punches of their own, with our help.
When we lengthen the interval at which we harvest our trees, we give them more time to soak up some carbon dioxide. This longer "rotation" (to use a forester's word) also results in fewer soil disturbance events. About a third of a forest's carbon is held in its soil.
When we mimic natural processes by, say, managing for a variety of tree ages and sizes, we maximize both carbon uptake by young trees and carbon storage in older specimens.
We can intercede in woodlots that have stalled at an "understocked" stage (another forester's term). Maybe those forests were overcut long ago, or maybe the commercially and ecologically valuable species were removed from the regeneration pool. By replacing that stock with native species, we can restore the woodlot's carbon sequestration potential.
And we can refrain from harvesting some forest stands altogether, on purpose, because we're "carbon conservative."
We've long know forests provide us with any number of ecological and spiritual benefits. We know forests are at the center of rural economies. And now, it turns out, forests can combat climate change too.
It makes me think we northeasterners don't need to wish we had a few giant sequoias of our own. With wood thrushes and mushrooms, deer and lichen, clean water and spring azure butterflies, deep snow and hobblebush, bogs and brook trout, board feet and maple sugar, and now, hope for an ailing planet, we've got plenty to cause awe in our own forests, just outside our back doors. I, for one, am awestruck and humbled by these gifts.
The Bennington County Sustainable Forest Consortium is a collaborative between forest landowners, consulting foresters, loggers, the Bennington County Conservation District (BCCD), and the Bennington County Forester's office. Its mission is to promote dialogue and learning between forest landowners, resources professionals, and the general public.
Shelly Stiles is the district manager of the BCCD, whose mission is promoting
rural livelihoods and protecting natural resources in southwestern Vermont. For
more information on the workshop and on others scheduled for Spring 2008,
contact Stiles at 442-2275 or bccd@sover.net.
This column appeared in the Bennington Banner in March 2008, as one of the BCCD's
Conservation Currents pieces, a bi-weekly feature written by BCCD board and staff
members since August 2006.