Some conservationists argue a recent Forest Service report will lead to more logging of old trees. They say federal forests should be left alone to soak up carbon emissions. But the Forest Service says in coming decades older trees will absorb less carbon.
Deep in northern Michigan’s Huron-Manistee National Forest, the air reverberates with the sound of a tree harvester picking up fully grown jack-pines out of the ground like toothpicks.
Once the trees are lifted, the machine, known as a forwarder, slices the tree into logs in less than a minute.
“It cuts the trees to a certain length that meets our technical specification,” said Matt Bonnau, a harvest inspector for the Huron-Manistee. “Zips them, de-barks them, de-limbs them, and then it cuts it to length.”
This is just one of hundreds of timber harvests that take place all across the Midwest in places like the Hoosier, Shawnee and Mark Twain National Forests. These trees, ranging from jack-pines in northern Michigan, to cedar trees in southern Missouri, go on to sawmills where they will become various woods products or ground into pulp.
In fiscal year 2023, national forests in Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri, Indiana and Illinois sold a combined $32 million worth of convertible wood products.
While how many trees should be harvested on national forests has been a long debate — now the discussion centers around climate change. Several estimates show that forests capture roughly 13% of the nation’s carbon emissions each year. Yet conservationists and Forest Service officials don’t always see eye-to-eye on a path forward to maximize forest health as a natural way of snatching up carbon.
Source: kcur.org
Photo credit: gettyimages-paul-hartley
Categories: Kansas, Crops