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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
ACTION
ITEM: Ancient Old-Growth Forests Best Carbon Sinks
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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org
http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Archives & Portal
09/23/00
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY
Important
new scientific studies, including a recent SCIENCE article,
highlight
the importance of old-growth forest ecosystems as a
mechanism
to address climate change, and provide a powerful new
argument
for protecting ancient forests. New
studies indicate that
old-growth
continues to remove carbon even when fully mature, and
that
old and wild forests are better than plantations at dependably
removing
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Huge amounts of carbon
are
sequestered for long periods in old-growth ecosystems—both in
trees
and perhaps more importantly in soils.
Soils in undisturbed
tropical
rain forests and temperate woodlands contain enormous
amounts
of carbon derived from fallen leaves, twigs and buried roots
that
can bind to soil particles and remain in place for 1,000 years
or
more. When such forests are cut, the
trees' roots decay and soil
is
disrupted, releasing the carbon dioxide.
It would take centuries
for
newly planted trees to build up such an underground carbon
reservoir. Details on these new studies that
reemphasize earlier
findings
regarding the ecological importance of ancient forests are
included
below.
Yet,
the United States, Canada, Russia and other countries have been
pressing
in ongoing Kyoto negotiations to achieve as much as half of
their
greenhouse gas reductions not by reducing carbon dioxide
releases
at the source, but by using "sinks" like planted forests to
remove
carbon dioxide. There is emerging
scientific consensus that
pursuit
of plantation forestry as carbon sinks may in fact lead to
greater
carbon release--particularly if planting occurs on formerly
old-growth
covered landscapes. The extent of any
net carbon
sequestration,
if any it all, is difficult if not impossible to
accurately
measure. It will be sadly inappropriate
to reduce targets
for
emission reductions on the expectation that forests planted as
carbon
sinks will prove adequate to address looming climate change,
while
failing to pursue policy to maintain the current and growing
stores
of carbon being sequestered in existing ancient forests and
their
soils.
Please
take a moment to contact the secretariat of the United Nations
Convention
on Climate Change, and the main governments pushing carbon
sinks
over emission reductions. Demand that
protection of old growth
ecosystems
be pursued as priority carbon sequestration strategy, that
any
final agreement be free of incentives to pursue plantation
forestry
where ancient forests stand, and that carbon sinks not be
allowed
to offset government commitments to reduce source emissions.
The
Secretariat
United
National Framework Convention on Climate Change
P.O.
Box 260124
D-53153
Bonn
Germany
Email: secretariat@unfccc.int
Fax:
(49-228) 815-1999
President
Bill Clinton
President
of the United States of America
Email: president@whitehouse.gov
Fax:
(202) 456-1111
Prime
Minister Jean Chretien
Prime
Minister of Canada
Email: pm@pm.gc.ca
Here is
a sample letter:
Dear
____:
Significant
new scientific findings are reemphasizing the importance
of
maintaining ancient forest ecosystems as a mechanism to address
climate
change. Old-growth forests continue to
remove carbon,
sequestering
it for centuries in its soils, even when fully mature.
Old and
wild forests are better than plantations at dependably
removing
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Success of the
international
effort to address climate change will depend to a large
extent
upon how well you integrate protection of ancient forest
ecosystems
into your climate change policy-making.
This will require
that
protection of old growth forest ecosystems be pursued as a
priority
carbon sequestration strategy, that any final Kyoto
agreement
be free of incentives to pursue plantation forestry in
ancient
forest stands, and that carbon sinks not be allowed to offset
government
commitments to reduce source emissions.
At this globally
critical
juncture, we depend upon you to place ecological
requirements
for effective climate change policy before political
expediency.
Sincerely,
g.b.
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ITEM #1
Title: Planting New Forests Can't Match Saving Old
Ones in Cutting
Greenhouse Gases, Study Finds
Source: Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
Date: September 22, 2000
By: ANDREW C. REVKIN
A new
study has cast doubts on an important element of a proposed
treaty
to fight global warming: the planting of new forests in an
effort
to sop up carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas.
The
research concludes that old, wild forests are far better than
plantations
of young trees at ridding the air of carbon dioxide,
which
is released when coal, oil and other fossil fuels are burned.
The
United States and other countries with large land masses want to
use
forest plantations to meet the goals of the proposed treaty. The
study's
authors say that any treaty also needs to protect old forests
and
that, so far there is no sign that such protections are being
considered.
Without
such protections, the scientists conclude, some countries
could
be tempted to cut down old forests now and then plant new
trees
on the deforested land later, getting credit for reducing
carbon
dioxide when they have actually made matters worse.
The
analysis, published in the journal Science today, was done by Dr.
Ernst-Detlef
Schulze, the director of the Max Planck Institute for
Biogeochemistry
in Jena, Germany, and two other scientists at the
institute.
Several
climate and forestry experts familiar with the work said the
study
provided an important new argument for protecting old-growth
woods.
And they say the study provides a reminder that the main goal
should
be to reduce carbon dioxide emissions at the source,
smokestacks
and tailpipes.
In old
forests, huge amounts of carbon taken from the air are locked
away
not only in the tree trunks and branches, but also deep in the
soil,
where the carbon can stay for many centuries, said Kevin R.
Gurney,
a research scientist at Colorado State University. When
such a
forest is cut, he said, almost all of that stored carbon is
eventually
returned to the air in the form of carbon dioxide.
"It
took a huge amount of time to get that carbon sequestered in hose
soils,"
he said, "so if you release it, even if you plant again,
it'll
take equally long to get it back."
Negotiators
are to meet in November to settle on methods for staving
off a
predicted warming that could disrupt ecosystems, harm
agriculture
and cause sea levels to rise, eroding coasts.
The
negotiations are taking place under the Kyoto Protocol, an
agreement
that was signed by more than 100 countries in 1997 but has
not yet
been ratified. It sets goals for cutting greenhouse gas
emissions
starting in 2008 but includes few details on how to achieve
them.
The
United States, Canada, Russia and other countries have been
pressing
to achieve as much as half their greenhouse gas reductions
not at
the source but by using "sinks" like forests to remove carbon
dioxide.
In the
last round of talks, which ended last week in Lyon, France,
some
countries were still seeking treaty language that could allow
some new
planting to occur on land that was recently cleared of old
forest
and get credit for greenhouse-gas reductions, said Mr. Gurney,
who
attended the talks as an observer.
David
B. Sandalow, an assistant secretary of state who was the chief
American
delegate in Lyon, said that the treaty drafts so far could
theoretically
allow such a practice but that the United States was
seeking
to prevent this.
"We're
committed to protecting old growth and finding ways to address
this
issue," Mr. Sandalow said.
The
German study, together with other similar research, has produced
a
picture of mature forests that differs sharply from long-held
notions
in forestry, Dr. Schulze said. He said aging forests were
long
perceived to be in a state of decay that releases as much carbon
dioxide
as it captures.
But it
turns out that the soils in undisturbed tropical rain forests,
Siberian
woods and some German national parks contain enormous
amounts
of carbon derived from fallen leaves, twigs and buried roots
that
can bind to soil particles and remain for 1,000 years or more.
When
such forests are cut, the trees' roots decay and soil is
disrupted,
releasing the carbon dioxide.
Centuries
would have to pass until newly planted trees built up such
a
reservoir underground.
New
forests are fine as long as they are planted on land that was
previously
vacant, Dr. Schulze said, adding, "but there has to be a
focus
on preserving the old growth."
ITEM #2
Title: Study Says Kyoto Protocol is Flawed
Source: EarthVision Environmental News
Date: September 21, 2000
LAXENBURG,
Austria, September 21, 2000 - A recently released study
says
the provision within the Kyoto Protocol that allows for the
creation
of carbon sinks to extract carbon from the atmosphere is
flawed.
The Protocol is the international treaty that resulted from
the
December 1997 United Nations Convention on Climate Change's
Conference
of the Parties in Kyoto, Japan. It seeks to control
greenhouse
gas emissions and curb global warming. Under the Protocol,
countries
would reduce their overall emissions of greenhouse gases by
at
least five percent below 1990 levels in the commitment period 2008
to
2012.
The
study released by the International Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis
(IIASA), entitled Full Carbon Account for Russia, notes that
since
reductions of the magnitude sought would be difficult to
achieve,
the Protocol offers countries an alternative: reducing a
country's
carbon dioxide burden by planting more forests or creating
or
improving other carbon sinks. However, IIASA's research, which
uses
Russia as a case study, shows that benefits of the biological
sinks
cannot be accurately measured.
Without
the ability to take a full inventory of carbon emissions,
countries
looking to use the carbon sink provision instead of
reducing
their emissions may actually be able to increase their net
release
of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Therefore, even
countries
signing the Kyoto Protocol can pump even more carbon into
the
air, worsening the problem the Protocol seeks to improve. Due to
the
uncertainties involved, the study says countries joining the
treaty
will not be able to verify their agreed Kyoto targets
currently.
IIASA
said it chose Russia for the study because the country is
responsible
for 15 percent of the global net releases of carbon into
the
atmosphere, while its forests account for approximately 20
percent
of the world's total forested area. A better understanding of
Russia's
carbon balance is not only important in itself but an ideal
case
study to develop verifiable methods to account for a country's
net
carbon impact the authors say.
IIASA's
research shows that a full carbon accounting (FCA) for a
country
requires not only highly detailed studies of complex natural
and
anthropogenic processes and their interactions, but also
identification
and quantification of the associated uncertainties.
The
analyses conducted by the IIASA scientists follow a systems
approach,
and examine various pools (reservoirs with the capacity to
accumulate
or release carbon) and fluxes (transfers of carbon from
one
pool to another) in soils, terrestrial biota, agricultural
products,
and forest products, as well as in animal husbandry and the
energy
sector.
Based
on its research, IIASA found that the uncertainty range for the
estimated
total flux balance in 1990 amounts to about 129 percent.
The
in-depth analyses of the data show that any improvement in
Russia's
total carbon balance falls completely within this assessed
uncertainty
range; thus, the uncertainties of the accounts dwarf the
changes
in the total flux balance well beyond the compliance period
mandated
by the Kyoto Protocol the authors conclude.
The
report, Full Carbon Account for Russia, is available online from
IIASA.
ITEM #3
Title: CLIMATE CHANGE: Managing Forests After
Kyoto
Source: SCIENCE Online. Volume 289, Number 5487, Issue of 22 Sep
2000, pp. 2058-2059. Copyright © 2000 by The American
Association
for the Advancement of Science.
Date: September 21, 2000
By: Ernst-Detlef Schulze, Christian Wirth,
Martin Heimann*
The
global carbon cycle is characterized by large natural fluxes into
and out
of oceans and terrestrial vegetation. These fluxes result in
a small
net sink (meaning that carbon is absorbed from the atmosphere
into
land and oceans), which partly compensates the anthropogenic
fossil
fuel emissions that are the main carbon source for the
atmosphere
today (1, 2). In view of the likely climatic effects of
increasing
CO2 concentrations, the Kyoto protocol was negotiated with
the aim
of reducing fossil fuel emissions. The
protocol also
suggests
that management of natural terrestrial carbon sinks,
primarily
afforestation and reforestation at a global scale, can
increase
sink strength and thus reduce atmospheric CO2. In the
following,
we discuss problems associated with the definition of
carbon
sinks and analyze consequences of fire and harvest in relation
to
forest stand age. In contrast to the sink management proposed in
the
Kyoto protocol, which favors young forest stands, we argue that
preservation
of natural old-growth forests may have a larger effect
on the
carbon cycle than promotion of regrowth.
The
Kyoto protocol evoked an unprecedented effort in biogeochemical
sciences.
As nations were asked to verify the anthropogenic
contribution
to the terrestrial carbon sink at scales ranging from
plots
to continents, large uncertainties emerged. Continental-scale
carbon
fluxes estimated from forest inventories, eddy flux
measurements,
and atmospheric inverse model studies led to
conflicting
results when compared for the same region. For example,
sink
estimates range between 0.2 and 1.3 gigatons per year (Gt/year)
for the
continental United States (3, 4), between 0.01 and 1.3
Gt/year
for Siberia (5, 6), and between 0.2 and 0.4 Gt/year for
Europe
(7, 8). These uncertainties arise from the fact that the
different
methods measure different fluxes of the terrestrial carbon
cycle
at different temporal and spatial scales.
The
carbon cycle can be classified into the following fluxes (see the
first
figure) (9): gross primary production (GPP; carbon assimilation
by
photosynthesis ignoring photorespiration), net primary production
(NPP;
the fraction of GPP resulting in growth when plant respiration,
Ra, is
taken into account), net ecosystem production (NEP; taking the
annual
budget of heterotrophic respiration of soil organisms, Rh,
into
account), and net biome production [NBP; taking nonrespiratory
losses
such as fire and harvest into account (10)].
Schematic
representation of the terrestrial carbon cycle. Arrows
indicate
fluxes; boxes indicate pools. The size of the boxes
represents
differences in carbon distribution in terrestrial
ecosystems.
CWD, coarse woody debris; Rh, heterotrophic respiration
by soil
organisms; PS, photosynthesis.
Definitions
of these carbon fluxes are based on annual budgets. This
is
convenient for GPP and NPP, which are input fluxes that are well-
defined
at an annual scale. But the terrestrial carbon cycle is a
highly
dynamic system. Especially at the decomposition side of the
cycle,
there are intermediate pools that differ in their turnover
time
and "shortcuts" where carbon may return to the atmosphere at a
higher
pace. Carbohydrate pools turn over on a daily basis, leaves
may
stay for several seasons, living wood and soil organic matter may
persist
for millennia depending on species and environment (for
example,
more than 4000 years in the wood of Bristlecone Pine), and
fire
may return carbon to the atmosphere instantaneously, although it
also
produces long-lived black carbon.
NEP (=
GPP - Ra - Rh) captures all changes in ecosystem carbon that
result
from the balance of physiological processes of plants and
microbes.
Being more variable, respiration rather than assimilation
determines
the net budget (11). NEP can be detected as changes in
biomass,
litter, and soil organic carbon (12) in the absence of fire
and
harvest and is thus not exclusively associated with changes in
the
passive carbon pool. In forest ecosystems, most carbon is stored
in
intermediate pools containing materials like wood, litter, or
partially
decomposed organic matter that range in their degree of
chemical
reduction somewhere between newly assimilated sugars and
almost
inert black carbon. All these materials potentially support
future
respiration and may be preserved or activated by external
forcing
affecting the physiological balance and therefore NEP. This
can
result from short-term climatic fluctuations or from long-lasting
effects
of disturbances that redistribute carbon between pools of
different
turnover times, for example, converting living into dead
biomass
or transfer soil carbon from the passive into the active
pool.
In NBP,
fire and harvest return carbon to the atmosphere or export
carbon
instantaneously. These pulse-like events override a short-term
balance.
Ground fire or thinning operations may export a fraction of
the
living biomass or the organic layer, whereas stand-replacing
fires
or a full harvest may reset the vegetation to an early stage of
succession.
Annual
NEP and NBP budgets thus represent a sum of many disparate
pools
of the carbon cycle, and interpretation of measured flux rates
is
difficult. It appears that only large-scale inventory studies that
include
not only biomass but also coarse wood debris and the organic
layer
can capture the stochastic effects of disturbance (13), and it
remains
unclear why inventory studies result in lower estimates of
the
terrestrial sink than inverse models.
Consider,
for example, the changes in carbon pools of a boreal pine
forest
of Siberia following a stand-replacing fire (see the figure
below).
The total carbon pool of a stand decreases in young stands
because
decomposition of dead biomass from the previous forest
generation
results in respiration that is higher than the NPP of the
regrowth.
In a boreal forest, it takes decades for NPP to exceed Rh.
The
carbon pool then increases rapidly until canopy closure. In
contradiction
to the ecological equilibrium paradigm, the total
carbon
pool continues to increase even in old stands. In boreal
forest,
this trend of carbon accumulation is interrupted by repeated
ground
fire (in managed forests by thinning), which results in a
"sawtooth"-type
time response (see the top panel in the figure
below).
Age
matters. Changes of total ecosystem carbon (top) and of NPP, NEP,
and NBP
fluxes (bottom) with stand age in Siberian pine stands. The
sequence
starts and ends with a stand-replacing fire. The "sawtooth"
dents
in total ecosystem carbon result from repeated surface fires.
Downward
arrows indicate carbon losses caused by these fires. The
stands
accumulate carbon between fires at a rate indicated by the
upward
slope of the "dents," which represents NEP. The slope of the
dashed
line indicates the short-term NBP, including fire losses. The
carbon
loss decreases initially because the respiratory losses caused
by
decomposition of coarse wood debris left over from the preceeding
forest
generation are higher than the carbon uptake of the young
regrowing
forest. Inset in top panel: Time to equilibrate carbon
export
by fire or harvest in relation to the life-span of the forest
stand
(stand-replacing fire cycle or rotation period). Under constant
conditions,
the time required to equilibrate carbon exports should be
equal
to the rotation period (1:1 line). However, with increasing
life-span
of the stand, proportionally more carbon can be transferred
into a
permanent pool of soil carbon (passive
soil organic matter or
black
carbon). Therefore, the time for equilibration decreases with
increasing
rotation length, because more carbon is generated that
cannot
be exported. Data from (15).
Long-term
changes in carbon stocks at plot scale generally ignore the
main
carbon loss that takes place with stand-replacing fires (or
final
harvest). How long it takes to equilibrate this loss depends on
the
initial amount of carbon exported by fire or harvest. A fire in a
young
stand (or a harvest of a fast rotation forest) will export less
carbon
and can be equilibrated faster than a fire in an old stand or
the
harvesting of long rotation managed forest. Under constant
conditions
of resource supply and climate, it will take about the
same amount
of time to replace the exported biomass as it took to
grow it
(see inset in top panel in the figure above). There is thus
no
difference between short and long rotations, except that old
stands
allow more carbon to enter a permanent carbon pool.
This is
because the permanent turnover of leaves and roots will
contribute
to the active and persistent pool of soil organic matter,
and
depending on age, ground fires will contribute to the formation
of
black carbon, so that with each rotation (by full harvest or
stand-replacing
fire), soil organic matter and black carbon are
accumulated.
The fraction set aside in this way increases with
rotation
length. Monitoring Kyoto forest plots
over short periods of
time
will tend to overestimate carbon storage.
Two
major questions emerge: Is an equilibrium of assimilation and
respiration
at the plot or landscape scale possible?
And are
forested
landscapes different in their sink capacity depending on
whether
they have old-growth forest or young fast rotating stands
(not
taking into account the large carbon loss caused by the
reduction
of the landscape carbon pool associated
with a shortening
of the
rotation length)?
These
questions cannot be answered with certainty yet, but an
increasing
number of process studies indicate that terrestrial forest
ecosystems
do not reach an equilibrium of assimilation and
respiration
and act as net carbon sinks until high ages (14). We
believe
that this is because the carbon cycle of forests is driven by
the
turnover of leaves and roots, which will continue to contribute
to a
stable part of soil organic carbon unless disturbed by harvest
or
fire. We also hypothesize that the accumulation of carbon in a
permanent
pool increases exponentially with stand age, because time
without
disturbance is required to channel carbon through its cycle
into a
nonactive pool of soil organic carbon and the production of
black
carbon depends on biomass.
These
arguments indicate that replacing unmanaged old-growth forest
by
young Kyoto stands, for example, as part of a Clean Development
Mechanism
or during harvest of previously unmanaged old-growth forest
stands
as part of forest management (the latter does not gain credits
under
the Kyoto protocol), will lead to massive carbon losses to the
atmosphere
mainly by replacing a large pool with a minute pool of
regrowth
and by reducing the flux into a permanent pool of soil
organic
matter. Both effects may override the anticipated aim, namely
to
increase the terrestrial sink capacity by afforestation and
reforestation.
References and Notes
1. D.
Schimel et al., IPCC-WGI 1995, 65 (1996).
2.
Atmospheric oxygen measurements have confirmed that the measured
increase
in atmospheric CO2 concentrations originates from fossil
fuel
burning [R. F. Keeling et al., Nature 381, 218 (1996) [GEOREF];
M.
Battle et al.,Science 287, 2467 (2000)].
3. D.
Schimel et al., Science 287, 2004 (2000).
4. S.
M. Fan et al., Science 282, 442 (1998).
5. E.
D. Schulze et al., Global Change Biol. 5, 703 (1999).
6. P.
Bousquet et al., J. Geophys. Res. 104, 26161 (1999) [ADS].
7. E.
D. Schulze et al., Ecol. Stud. 142, 468 (2000).
8. P.
H. Martin et al., Ambio 27, 582 (1998).
9. J.
Melillo et al., IPCC-WGI 1995, 445 (1996).
10. E.
D. Schulze and M. Heimann, IGBP Publ. Ser. 3, 145 (1998).
11. R.
Valentini et al., Nature 404, 861 (2000).
12. S.
C. Wofsy et al., Science 260, 1314 (1993).
13. A.
Z. Shvidenko and S. Nilsson, Ambio 23, 396 (1994).
14. N.
Buchmann and E. D. Schulze, Global Biogeochem. Cycles 13, 751
(1999)
[GEOREF].
15.C.
Wirth et al., Plant Soil, in press.
The
authors are at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Post
Office
Box 100164, 07701 Jena, Germany. E-mail: Detlef.Schulze@bgc-
jena.mpg.de
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