Natural forests hold key in climate change battle

2008-8-5  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

UNTOUCHED natural forests store three times more carbon dioxide than previously estimated and 60 percent more than plantation forests, according to a new Australian study of "green carbon" and its role in climate change.

Green carbon occurs in natural forests, brown carbon is found in industrialized forests or plantations, grey carbon in fossil fuels and blue carbon in oceans.

Australian National University scientists said the role of untouched forests, and their biomass of green carbon, had been underestimated in the fight against global warming.

The scientists said the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol did not distinguish between the carbon capacity of plantation forests and untouched forests, the study, issued yesterday, said.

Co-author of the report Brendan Mackey said protecting natural forests served two purposes: It maintained a large carbon sink and stopped the release of the forest's stored carbon.

"Protecting the carbon in natural forests is preventing an additional emission of carbon from what we get from burning fossil fuel," he said.

The carbon stored in the world's biomass and soil was about three times the amount in the atmosphere, said the report. It revealed that about 35 percent of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were a result of past deforestation and 18 percent of annual global emissions was from continued deforestation.