A Forest Doesn’t Manage Itself

MANAGE the GLOBAL FORESTS to SAVE OUR PLANET

Mission Statement

Global Forest Resources was founded to promote sustainable forest resources management; to develop markets for ecological products and to manage forests for traditional commodities.

Forest Management is the interactive process of making plans and implementing practices for the conservation (i.e., wise use and management) of forests to meet specific environmental, financial, social, and cultural goals. It is a broad field of administrative, monetary, social, and technical factors relative to creating, growing, and tending groups of trees- ‘stands’. Forest management may involve varying degrees of deliberate human intervention in global forest ecosystems. These deliberate and planned interventions may include preservation (i.e., actions to sustain an ecosystem in a permanent and static state), and conservation (i.e., efforts to apply science and manipulate the forest environment in ways that perpetuate not only the forest ecosystem but the human environment as well). All forests on this planet can be managed sustainably by harvesting no more than can be grown in perpetuity. Indeed, ‘sustainable forest management’ is defined globally as a dynamic and evolving concept. The goal of which is to maintain and enhance the economic, social, and environmental values of all types of forests for the benefit of present and future generations. Contemplating the importance of forests, Global Forest Resources promotes sustainable forestry with a variety of management practices. We also believe the key to adapting forests to climate change is to build complexity into their species composition and structure. Our practices offer a holistic approach to management of global forest ecosystems for the welfare of present and future generations.

The world’s forests have always had an inherent value beyond simply cutting them down and making boards. They filter water, regulate freshwater flows and yields, store water, provide oxygen and sequester and store carbon from the atmosphere. In addition, they provide essential and critical habitat for a large and diverse array of flora and fauna. Indeed, it is this very diversity of life that makes this round sphere we call Earth a living and liveable planet.  

Carbon Assets

Through the process of photosynthesis, individual trees and forest communities around this planet remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and through a chemical process science refers to as the Calvin Cycle, combine it with water, and build a 6-carbon sugar compound called glucose. During this process, the tree releases oxygen back into the general atmosphere through gas exchange valves, called stomata, which are usually located on the underside of the leaves and needles. Thus, trees are referred to as ‘the lungs of the planet’. A portion of these sugars are stored as cellulose (i.e. wood fibres) in the woody portion of the tree. The remainder of the sugar compounds are broken down into energy compounds through what science calls the Krebs Cycle. These energy compounds- ATP, NADP, NADPH are translocated throughout the plant. Carbon in the cellulosic form is stored throughout the tree- from roots to buds.

Increasing carbon in the earth’s atmosphere is creating climate and weather anomalies and extremes. These extremes are disrupting food production, energy grids, water flows and yields, and global health for so many species. Global forests are the most natural carbon management system. They take in carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. They are truly the lungs of this planet.

Is carbon additionally stored in forest soils?

Sure, and agricultural soils as well. Carbon stored within the different soil horizons is essential.  Carbon plays a critical role in soil health. It increases water holding capacity and infiltration rates. It reduces invasive weeds and disease incidence. Soil carbon increases biodiversity as well as improves the plants’ ability to uptake and utilize micro- and macro-nutrients. It decreases potential erosion and soil loss to overland flow.  It also holds on to water like a sponge, thus reducing the amount of water needed for irrigation. When we calculate how much carbon a wooded area can sequester and hold as a reservoir, we consider the complete ecosystem: the standing dead, the shrub layer, the soils, and the dead woody material on the forest floor. Imagine a temperate forest of maples and ash trees, where their leaves fall to the ground every autumn. Some of that forest carbon in the leaves is returned to the soil as they decay, ensuring a stable soils carbon flux over time.  However, a portion of it also returns to the atmosphere. When trees die and fall to the forest floor, tons of that woody material also decompose over time and return to the atmosphere as part of the global carbon cycle or percolate into the soils as a long-term soils carbon component.

Soils Carbon:

Soil carbon comprises 50 -70% of the total carbon assets in temperate and the cooler boreal forests. Hence, small changes in soil carbon can have significant impact on ecosystem carbon storage. Soils constitute the largest terrestrial carbon pool, containing as much as 2,344,000,000,000 tonnes (2.344 gtonnes) of basic carbon (C) to a depth of 3 meters.  Forest soils, especially, contain more than double the amount of carbon than above ground biomass. Most carbon registries assume that management activities have little or no effect on soil carbon stocks if site preparation activities do not include mechanical site disturbance of more than 25% of the area. However, research has shown significant sequestration rates for temperate forest soils with rates ranging as high as 4.8 tonnes of CO2e /acre/year. (1.3 tonnes of carbon). Although soils carbon stocks accounted for nearly 48% of all forest carbon, they contributed only 2% of the total sequestration. This suggests that soil carbon stocks are relatively stable, and this apparent lack of change may be the result of losses (from management activities) and gains (from increased growth). 

Organic material in the forests- especially stems and branches must be managed, maintained, and regenerated over time. Agricultural soils carbon has been depleted by continuous cropping of the organic material. This has increased the need for additional irrigation water and nutrient supplements. Silvicultural prescriptions for the forest environment must include management guidelines for slash and residue with appropriate fuel loadings to replenish the organic matter in the soil horizons so our forest soils do not become like our agriculture soils.

Forest Nutrients:

There are at least 17 nutrient elements, both macro and micro, important for tree and plant health, vigor, and growth. The nutrients important and most in demand by conifers- the macro nutrients include calcium (Ca), nitrogen (N), phosphorous, (P), and potassium (K), carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O). The micro-nutrients are required in smaller amounts and include boron (B), chlorine (Cl), molybdenum (Mo), nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), magnesium (Mg), manganese (Mn), sodium (Na) and zinc (Zn).

All forests undergo a complex and extensive nutrient cycling system. Tropical forests tend to participate in a ‘direct’ system where the nutrient elements are stored in the foliage of the  tree species and the many layers of epiphytes. Due to the heavy rainfall typical of these areas, most nutrients are leached out of tropical soils leaving a relatively inert soil environment. Hence it is critical that plants store the very nutrients essential for their survival, growth and reproduction. These nutrients are stored and recycled within the plant community. Temperate forests, including the cooler boreal forests employ an ‘indirect nutrient’ cycling system. In this system, nutrients are accumulated in especially the foliage and small branches (<3 inches diameter) as the tree grows and matures. When the trees die, these nutrients are ‘returned’ to the soil environment to be stored on exchange sites in the soil. These exchange sites are often referred to as the ‘cation exchange capacity’(CEC) of the soil. And typically, the higher the organic content of the soil, the higher the CEC. A cation is a positively charged ion. An anion is a negatively charged element. Plants can typically uptake only positively charged cations through their root structures.  However, nutrients available in the soil are greatly influenced and dependent upon the soil pH, or hydrogen ion concentration in the soil.

Soil pH and the hydrogen (H) ion concentration in the soil environment is an inverse relationship. A pH of 4 has a much higher H concentration ( 1 in 10-4 sites= 1/10,000) versus a pH of 7 (1 in 10-7 =1/10,000,000 sites). The higher concentration of H ions (e.g., a lower pH) implies there are fewer available sites on the CEC for important nutrient elements, both micro and macro. Plants cannot take up these important nutrient elements until they are a positively charged ion on the exchange sites. A significant problem with the H ion is in the nature of the ion itself. Its chemical energy allows it to hold to the exchange sites with more energy than the nutrient element can exert to displace it. Hence, important nutrient elements are flushed from the root zone over time leaving a less fertile soil, simply because H ions occupy a greater number of the exchange sites. A periodic ‘flushing’ mechanism is essential to remove the H ions from the exchange sites and return important and critical nutrient elements back to the soil. Prescribed fire ( and historically wildland fire) in these forests provide this flushing mechanism. Fire oxidizes organic material, freeing up the nutrient elements stored in the foliage, small branches, and to a lesser extent the larger branches and woody stems. Thus, the ash that is left after a fire provides an overwhelming number of critical nutrient elements to remove or flush the H ions from the sites and attach themselves to these same exchange sites as they infiltrate and percolate into the soil environment.  Hence, the notion that wood ash resulting from fire in the forest is a natural fertilizer.

Forest residues- stems, branches and needles contain a substantial nutrient resource. Stripping even a portion  off the forest site with inadequate logging practices may adversely affect longer-term growth, health, and vigor.  More significantly, the loss of critical nutrient elements may limit the forests capacity to adapt to change and reduce the forests’ resiliency.