Rangiora
When discussing a report on the link between transport and the
greenhouse effect, Ian Lowe (Antipodes, 4 January) says that “in the short-term,
planting trees is the most effective (way to reduce net carbon dioxide
emissions), but this only stores carbon for a limited period, because trees are
cut down and return their carbon to the atmosphere”. This is like saying that a
lake or a river is a short-term water store, because the individual molecules of
water pass through the system rapidly. The reality is that rivers and lakes are
a permanent water store, and a forest is a permanent carbon store. Normal
harvesting, or the removal of a small component of a forest amounting to the
annual increment, should not be confused with deforestation, which is a
permanent change in vegetation cover.
The benefit of trees lies in the fact that a tree-covered landscape has a
higher carbon density than a deforested one. Trees are a short-term solution,
not because trees get chopped down or decay naturally, but because there is a
limit to the land area that can be converted to permanent forest. Depressingly,
this was all explained to Ian Lowe at a conference he attended in 1994.
Sometimes, one questions the value of these expensive conferences.
