Here in the Pacific Northwest we live in the midst of a globally significant carbon pool that should be nurtured and conserved to help keep carbon out of the atmosphere¹.  Temperate old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest contain some of the highest amounts of biomass per acre measured anywhere in the world. About half of the dry weight of forest biomass is comprised of carbon. The latest IPCC Mitigation Report notes that “Forest-related mitigation activities can considerably reduce emissions from sources and increase CO₂ removals by sinks at low costs…”².  The IPCC also states that more than 1/3 of the potential mitigation available from forests is located outside the tropics and half of the forest mitigation will come from changes in forest practices, rather than simply preventing deforestation. 

The objectives of forest management with respect to mitigating climate change should be two-fold effort to protect and restore forests —

• Minimize the release of additional forest carbon into the atmosphere. The best way to retain carbon in existing forests is to protect mature and old-growth forests and roadless areas.
• Rebuild depleted carbon stores within forested landscapes. Probably the best way to rebuild forest carbon stores in forests is to allow forests that were previously logged or burned to regrow and become mature and old-growth forests. 

There are significant complementary benefits of managing forests for carbon storage to ameliorate global climate change. If done carefully, forests managed to provide public services such as clean water, habitat for fish and wildlife, soil conservation, and an enhanced amenity-based economy will also store large amounts of carbon over time³. 

Forests exhibit a quality known as “ecological inertia” which recognizes that established forests are generally long-lived, resilient to disturbance, and help create conditions suitable for their own survival⁴. This means that our northwest forests may be able to persist through some climate changes and continue to store carbon and provide other benefits, as long as they are not clearcut or severely disturbed. This implies that if we want continued carbon storage in forests that are at the edges of their suitable range we should avoid stand-replacing logging methods (such as clearcutting) and, where ecologically appropriate, we may need to strategically reduce fuels to reduce the risk of stand-replacing fire. Such fuel reduction must be done carefully however, because excessive removal of vegetation not only compromises carbon storage in both plants and soil, but can also increase fuel loads and fire hazard. Recent fire/fuel models indicate that forest fire hazard can be managed reasonably well by treating about 20-30 percent of the landscape in strategic locations⁵.  Treating fuel on every acre is neither needed or desired. Logging need not be the primary tool for accomplishing fuel reduction, because non-commercial techniques, such as low-intensity prescribed fire, are available and effective.