Using those trees sequesters the captured carbon into structures. Leaving them to stand and die in the forest releases that captured carbon.
Cutting down a 50 year old tree and putting it to a building instead of letting it grow is not an obvious carbon sink to me. The branches might be used for energy nowadays, but the bark and roots will release CO2 etc. The new sapling will grow very slowly (kg carbon per year) for the first 15 years.
"Having survived multiple forest fires" says a lot to me. Surviving a forest fire still invokes a huge release of otherwise captured carbon for no gain. Harvesting trees for timber means the bulk of the tree sequesters carbon into the structure, and the waste byproduct can be utilised to provide energy for the process.
With the correct tooling and processes, it's as close to carbon neutral as you can get.
The cycle of life for some trees involves forest fires, so I wouldn't write off forest fires as having "no gain".
My examples were of typical local forests here, which are long and slow growth by majority.
I know there are a lot of people with vested interest in selling logging as CO2 negative, and I see the idea promoted all the time.
Many of the US's classic native tree species are under incredible stress (or nearly wiped out) due to the rapid spread of parasites and disease, e.g., oak wilt, emerald ash borer, Dutch elm disease, American chestnut blight, Beech bark disease, et al. Many large stands will never reach maturity/old-age. Most American hardwoods only have a maximum lifespan of 250 - 300 years.
In a stand of mature trees, only the healthiest tree specimens should remain, as they will be the most resistant to disease and parasites.
Public forests managers are using something called "pre-emptive salvage", i.e., if a parasite has breached an area extensively, they're going to log off those stands while the wood can be salvaged into products (other than firewood).
> The new sapling will grow very slowly (kg carbon per year) for the first 15 years.
The rate of growth is really a function of access to light and water (and nutrients) [mostly light]. Some trees (like sugar maple) will grow slowly, nearly dormant, in the understory of a mature forest, and explode with growth when a column of light opens up due to the death of a mature neighboring tree.
Some trees (Redwood) grow incredibly quickly, reaching 6+ feet diameter in 100 years. Other trees only regenerate when clear cut, and have short lifespans (Aspen at 70ish years).
Clear cutting is the dominant forestry method here. Everything else was actually illegal only a short while ago. One can personally sample by eye the wood piles one sees on forest roads, or on wood trucks. In general, the material is quite small. There is very little forest in the whole country that has trees that are over 100 years old, and it's not because of forest fires.
My family owns forest and some of that was felled 60 years ago. The trees are quite small for clear cutting. The plan is to remove some of them, to make the others grow more. The proposed standard alternative (that most neighbors are doing), clear cutting it all and planting saplings - would that really be carbon negative? The trees in a way have the most growth potential right now.
There is unrest in the forest There is trouble with the trees For the maples want more sunlight And the oaks ignore their pleas
I absolutely agree with you.
In the book "A Landowner's Guide to Managing Your Woods" the authors point out that the fragmentation of contiguous forest parcels into small private holdings is problematic when it comes to managing healthy forests in the US, especially in the Eastern part of the United States.
The book points out that in 2006 the United States grew 26.7B+ cubic feet of new timber, but has only harvested 7.6B cubic feet. The reason being that much of that acreage is not accessible to harvest.
Many small land owners of forest properties are reluctant to harvest mature trees due to conservation messaging in earlier decades. They often also manage the mature stands of forest in their small parcel for their pleasure, not for 'forest health' or optimal carbon sequestration. Imagine anyone buying a shoreline cabin property and then electively cutting down all of the mature trees on the property.
Secondly, and more importantly, many foresters can not economically harvest from small acreage/parcels. Unless many nearby land owners band together to have their forests managed at the same time, it doesn't happen.
I'm guessing that most dead-stand is going up in smoke (literally turned into firewood) because it has no utility as lumber once it has started to rot or is attacked by parasites.
For larger contiguous tracts, some counties in the US States will tax-incentivize property owners for adopting a forest management plan (that includes timed harvests of mature trees).
Some US states are also purposely expanding public forests to increase contiguous holding and close gaps (of private ownership). The goal is not necessarily to expand the boundary, but rather the consolidate the holding within the existing boundary to incentivize large tract harvest (among other reasons).
Land owners who are managing habitat for hunting are often proactively, positively harvesting (by bringing in logging companies to make clearings). Cervidae (deer, moose, elk) need contiguous stands of immature trees for habitat.
> Leaving them to stand and die in the forest releases that captured carbon.
I own a stand of mature oaks that are quickly succumbing to oak wilt. They are being naturally replaced by aggressively spreading sugar maple, which can propagate quickly in a shaded understory and then bolt up when the dominating oaks die off due to disease.
I've been turning the dying mature oaks into lumber and firewood. If they're too far gone, they have no utility other than as firewood. I'm considering pre-emptive salvage in the areas that the oak wilt is prevalent so they're not completely relegated to firewood.
let's be generous to concrete and say we're only absorbing 100kg per 20 years, only get one ton of material, and that CLT is only twice as strong as concrete (it can be ~5x or higher in some cases). this still means one tree will have a 640kg advantage over concrete for the same output.
if we're even more generous to concrete and assume _only_ timber has wildly inefficient production and construction methods, the advantage is still in the order of hundreds of kgs.
Building material, CO2 scrubbing and CO2 storage, all in one package. Awesome stuff.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-07/anti-logging-protests...