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California
forest defenders scored an important victory in mid-January when
Assembly Bill 1504 – the Carbon Sink Act, sponsored by Forests
Forever and authored by Assemblymember Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley,
pictured below) – passed out of the Assembly and on to the Senate
on a vote of 43-28.
 The bill would, for the first time, require the California
Dept. of Forestry (CDF), in consultation with the state Air
Resources Board (ARB), to determine to what extent existing
forestry regulations and programs are meeting California’s
greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goals.
In
1973, when California adopted the Z’Berg-Nejedly Forest Practice
Act, the legislation made no mention of global warming or
GHGs. A broad consensus did
not yet exist that climate change was a planetary threat, and the
role of forests in storing carbon dioxide – a principal GHG – was
little known outside of academic circles.
At
that time, the chief forest-practice concerns – apart from
achieving a “maximum sustained yield of high-quality timber
products” – were recreation, watersheds, wildlife, range and
forage, fisheries, regional economic vitality, employment, and aesthetic enjoyment.
A.B.
1504 would add to that list the value of GHG sequestration.
Storage capacity
Today
global warming has compelled forest managers to confront a major
new challenge: to preserve forests as vital defenses in the fight
against climate change.
 Scientists recognize that intact forests – including living
and dead trees, soil, shrubs, and leafy litter – sequester large quantities of
CO2, thereby serving as indispensable “carbon sinks.”
According
to the most recent ARB data (for 2006), the state’s forests and
rangelands sequester some 14 million metric tons of CO2
annually. Simultaneously
they emit some 10 million metric tons of CO2 from wildfires,
logging, land-use conversion and decomposition of wood wastes. The net sequestration thus is
estimated at just over 4 million metric tons of CO2 per year.
As
mandated by A.B. 32, California's Global Warming Solutions Act of
2006, the ARB has set a statewide emissions limit of 427 million
metric tons of CO2 per year – the 1990 level – to be achieved by
2020. Currently the ARB
estimates California’s annual total CO2 emissions to be 484 million
metric tons.
"Some of the large timber companies in the state are
arguing that small, even-aged forests – plantations – sequester
more carbon than old forests,” said Forests Forever
Legislative Advocate Luke Breit. “Just about
everything, including most scientific review and common sense,
tells us that the opposite is true: Large, multi-aged forests
sequester the greatest amount of carbon.
“We need to ensure that the CDF accurately monitors and
assesses carbon sequestration scenarios. Otherwise we might even make a bad situation worse
instead of better. We think
A.B. 1504 will help achieve that goal.”
Meeting the global warming challenge
will require every ounce of ingenuity humanity can muster. California’s forests serve as a
first-line defense against CO2 pollution and climate change. Assemblymember Skinner and
Forests Forever want to recognize and codify that value so that
forests are managed in a way that enhances their capacity to scrub
the air clean.
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