Study: Logging cutbacks help store carbon
Posted 27 July 2011, by Staff (Associated Press), The Register-Guard, registerguard.com
CORVALLIS — Court-ordered logging reduc tions to save spotted owls and salmon from extinction have also helped the climate by storing more carbon, according to a new study in the online edition of the journal Forest Ecology and Management.
Researchers from the U.S. Forest Service and Oregon State University found that reducing timber production by more than 80 percent on national forests in Western Oregon, Washington and Northern California since 1994 turned those forests into a carbon sink for the first time in decades.
Growing more and bigger trees to store carbon that would otherwise contribute to greenhouse gas emissions is a strategy in the effort to control climate change.
