Forest Resources Association’s Post

Great read on Heatmap News featuring Mast Reforestation on how carbon credits are needed to help scale reforestation. Essential insights for anyone who loves trees and nature. Read more below 🌲

“Carbon’s our currency right now. It’s the thing that everyone is measuring around. But what about all the other destruction that comes with the energy sector? There's cascading effects that impact water, soils, methane. Forests tend to stabilize everything by moving us toward homeostasis at a landscape level. For me, these markets will work when we catalyze them at a regional, dare I say global scale.” - Matthew Aghai, Mast’s Chief Science Officer Carbon removal credits are vital for funding large-scale reforestation efforts, rebuilding ecosystems, and mitigating climate change. Emily Pontecorvo explores the evolving state of the carbon market and its potential to repair the reforestation supply. Read more in Heatmap News 👇 https://lnkd.in/g3TyXRMM #reforestation #carboncredits #carbonfinancing #wildfires 

Apart from nutrient exchange, soils also serve to sequester carbon. Peat soils, forest soils, mangrove soils, grasslands and agricultural soils especially the less invasive kind hold vast reserves of carbon. Soils are also a major part of agriculture and adding charcoal (or its dust) to soil increases its capacity to absorb carbon. It's an ancient technique. I wrote an article with more on soils and climate change. See: #soils #climateaction #climatechange #actonclimate https://lnkd.in/dThC_br9

#NowReading ☕ : Forest Restoration: Carbon, Water and So Much More #Forests and trees do so much more than simply capturing carbon. While #carbonstorage provides a vital service, a focus on the crucial role of carbon alone neglects the many other vital contributions forests make. For example, their role in sustaining #biodiversity, contributing to local people, and maintaining the #watercycle, require greater emphasis. In their essay "Restoring deforested drylands for a wetter future – harnessing trees for credits, climate and water", SUPERB’s Koen Kramer (Land Life Company) and Douglas Sheil (Wageningen University & Research) emphasize the importance of considering water alongside carbon when planning dryland restoration efforts. With the right tree species in the right locations, we can improve both carbon capture and the water cycle. The authors argue that in case of drylands, changes in atmospheric water should be recognised as human-induced factor for enhanced global warming. Their argument is that vast areas of dryland forests have been cleared over the last 2 centuries, which has resulted in desiccation, i.e. reduced condensation and thus less cooling of the atmosphere. In other words, human-induced deforestation enhanced the greenhouse effect of water vapor in the atmosphere and should therefore be recognised as direct effect determining climate change. If recognized, this effect can be expressed in CO₂ equivalents and existing markets can be used to fund restoration of #deforesteddrylands. This is, as the experts admit, a bold idea. The effects of trees and forests on local hydrology, albedo, and atmospheric moisture content is much debated in the scientific community as they depend on local orographic conditions, distance to sea, tree cover and species composition, and so on. Nevertheless, at a larger scale, desiccation by deforestation and rewetting by reforestation is increasingly recognized. With the right tree species in the right locations, we can improve both #carboncapture and the water cycle, emphasize Koen and Douglas. This could form the base to improve the land and lives of those living there. Water matters because everything else depends on it. https://lnkd.in/eCFDhi_K

Science keeps confirming common sense: in the hierarchy of carbon markets, payments to reduce deforestation and degradation should sit at the top. If someone tells you otherwise, suspect their understanding of nature and climate; or their motivations. "the global land carbon sink has grown, ....... Yet two-thirds of the benefit from this land carbon sink increase has been negated by tropical deforestation alone. “The single most important action for sustaining and increasing the forest carbon sink is to stop emissions from deforestation and degradation,”" Thanks Marc Baker for bringing this study to my attention. #naturebasedsolutions #carbon #voluntarycarbonmarket #vcm #redd #naturalcapital

Ever wonder about carbon offsets? Check out our research showing lots of forests that are part of offset programs are at high risk of burning up in wildfires. Just one of many problems with offset programs. https://lnkd.in/gNzm9xYd

🪵 ‘Wood Vaulting’: A Climate Solution You’ve Never Heard Of 🌍 In the fight against climate change, wood vaulting is gaining traction as a simple yet effective method for carbon sequestration. This strategy involves burying excess vegetation—specifically, small logs and woody debris—underground to prevent the release of greenhouse gases. 🔎 What You Need to Know: 1️⃣ Addressing Wildfire Risks: In northwestern Montana, as part of efforts to manage overgrown forests and reduce wildfire risks, researchers and companies are exploring the potential of wood vaulting. With an estimated 2.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in flammable vegetation that needs to be managed, this technique could significantly contribute to climate goals. 2️⃣ Cost-Effective Solution: Wood vaulting is touted as a low-cost and scalable carbon sequestration method, costing approximately $105 per metric ton of CO2. Other methods, like biochar and direct air capture, can cost $400 to $1,000 per metric ton. This affordability makes wood vaulting an attractive option for carbon dioxide removal (CDR). 3️⃣ Promising Developments: Companies like Mast Reforestation and Carbon Lockdown Project are already implementing pilot projects across the U.S., with plans to store thousands of metric tons of CO2. The Department of Energy backs these initiatives, indicating a growing recognition of wood vaulting's potential. 🔗 Read more about the potential of wood vaulting as a climate solution: https://lnkd.in/grQjND9g 🗣️ #questionforgroup: What additional steps can we take to promote the adoption of wood vaulting and similar carbon sequestration techniques in forest management? How can collaboration between private companies and government agencies facilitate this process? #climatechange #climate #sustainability #wood #timber #carbon #forestry #woodcentral #woodcentralau1 #netzero #preservation

"Here, by analysing observations of critical soil moisture thresholds globally, we show the prominent role of soil texture in modulating the onset of ecosystem water limitation through the soil hydraulic conductivity curve, whose steepness increases with sand fraction. This clarifies how ecosystem sensitivity to VPD versus soil moisture is shaped by soil texture, with ecosystems in sandy soils being relatively more sensitive to soil drying, whereas ecosystems in clayey soils are relatively more sensitive to VPD. For the same reason, plants in sandy soils have limited potential to adjust to water limitations, which has an impact on how climate change affects terrestrial ecosystems. In summary, although vegetation–atmosphere exchanges are driven by atmospheric conditions and mediated by plant adjustments, their fate is ultimately dependent on the soil." https://lnkd.in/dpZfMBm3

#enhancedrockweathering #carbonremoval #sustainablepractice #climateaction Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) is one of the promising methods to help mitigate climate change. In short ERW is a CO2 removal technique that involves spreading finely crushed silicate or basalt rocks over land to accelerate natural chemical reactions, and when exposed to atmospheric CO₂ and water, undergo weathering, it results in the conversion of CO₂ into stable carbonate minerals or bicarbonates. One of the recent examples I came across in BBC News, named as "Magic Dust" (more details below): https://lnkd.in/dienddNS 

The problem is the extreme summer of 2022 seems to have been forgotten. Sobering to find out that it currently could be even worse, with longer 40°C periods for the UK. Something like that might have been deemed an implausible weather scenario just a few years ago by some. We urgently need to increase resilience of our farming landscape as well as our urban areas. And time we got serious about de-carbonisation. https://lnkd.in/ep4qSUcC