Welcome To Festive Earth Society

Home arrow Climate Change arrow Forests and climate change

Forests and climate change PDF Print E-mail
User Rating: / 0
PoorBest 
Thursday, 03 July 2008

 

The forest management plays a key role
Climate change and forests are inextricably linked. On the one hand, forests are already suffering the consequences of climate change on the planet by an increase in average annual temperatures, altered patterns of precipitation and extreme weather events more frequent.

On the other hand, forests and the timber they produce capture and store carbon dioxide, playing a key role in mitigating climate change. Reverse of the coin: when they are over-exploited or destroyed and burned, forests can become sources of greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.

According to FAO, we must take measures now to manage these complex linkages in a holistic perspective.
"We certainly need to stop deforestation and increase the acreage of forest land masses," said Wulf Killmann, who chairs the interdepartmental working group of FAO on climate change. "But we also need to replace fossil fuels with biofuels - fuels such as wood sustainably managed forests - in order to reduce carbon emissions. We should also use more wood in sustainable products to eliminate carbon from the atmosphere for longer periods. "

How to trap one trillion tons of carbon
When fossil fuels burn, they emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thus contributing to global warming and climate change. Forests and trees help to mitigate these changes by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converting during photosynthesis carbon they store then in the form of wood and vegetation, a process known as the term "carbon sequestration".

Accordingly, forests store enormous amounts of carbon: a total of forests and forest soils global store more than a thousand billion tons of carbon - more than twice the volume in the atmosphere - according to studies of the FAO. The destruction of forests, however, injected almost six billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. Preventing these stocks of carbon being released is important for carbon balance and vital to conserving the environment, said the United Nations.

 

Better use of forests
Forests could be better used in the fight against climate change not only in preventing the slaughter but also through programmes for afforestation (new plantings) and reforestation (replanting of deforested areas).

Particularly in the tropics, where vegetation grows rapidly and therefore absorbs carbon more quickly, planting trees collects large quantities of carbon in a relatively short time; forests can store up to 15 tons of carbon per hectare per year in their biomass and wood.

The FAO and other experts have estimated that global carbon retention drift of reduced deforestation, increased forest recrû and expansion of agro-forestry and plantations could make up about 15 percent of carbon emissions from fossil fuels over the next 50 years.

The wood harvested is also a carbon sink, the wood used in the construction industry or furniture store carbon effectively for centuries. The manufacture of construction materials used for energy instead of wood - such as plastic, aluminum and cement - require considerable quantities of fossil fuels. Replacing them with wood bring other benefits in terms of reducing carbon emissions.

Likewise, the use of wood fuels to replace oil, coal and natural gas can actually mitigate climate change. The wood and biomass burning actually release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but if those fuels come from a forest managed in a sustainable, carbon emissions can be offset by new plantings of trees. By the way, if properly managed forests can provide a biological energy with virtually no contribution from greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 July 2008 )
 
< Prev   Next >
[ Back ]