Deforestation May Offer Climate, Economic Benefits in Certain Areas

Though it may sound counter-intuitive, deforestation may provide better climate benefits for certain areas than if the trees were left standing, researchers from Dartmouth College suggest.

Post-doctoral research associate David Lutz and environmental economist Richard Howarth, both of Dartmouth, contend that deforestation has conomic and climate benefits in high-latitude areas where snowfall is common and timber productivity is low.

One such region is White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, where the pair conducted their study. At high elevation and latitude, the forests there receive substantial amounts of snowfall. The area's cold climate, as well as poor soil conditions on the slopes, impose limits on how fast and how much forests can grow.

Snow in the region tends to remain well into the spring months, so when considering the economic benefit of clearing the forests for timber, as well as the albedo effect - the surface reflection of incoming solar energy - the researchers contend that the benefits of clearing the forest can outweigh the benefits of keeping it standing for carbon storage, but only if accounting for these three factors.

In an email to Nature World News, Lutz said that determining how to manage forests requires thinking about numerous variables. Some forests in the Northeast are being maintained to tap in to carbon storage markets.

"Our study just points out that in some places, this may be inappropriate, since growing dark forests that don't store a lot of carbon and block the beneficial effects of snow reflectivity is counter-productive from a climate perspective," Lutz said. But he noted that there is a lot more to forests than just timber and carbon benefits.

"Forests also provide additional benefits to society - water and nutrient retention capabilities, providing habitat for a myriad of bird and animal species, aesthetic beauty, cultural and religious values to residents," he said. "Our model does not include those, so it is important to realize that while heavy harvest may be beneficial from a climate standpoint, it also may be detrimental from many other perspectives and thus not appropriate."

When asked if he felt environmental groups would oppose to their findings, Lutz said he imagined they would.

"Forests provide many assets, and cutting them down because you are only considering three (timber, carbon, and albedo) is likely not a holistic way to manage natural resources. We are quite aware of that.

"But, from a physical and ecosystem science side, it is quite difficult to debate the influence that albedo has on climate regulation, and from that perspective, we are quite comfortable with our results. We hope that by including new ecosystem services into this kind of economic analysis, we will eventually start to understand how to properly and sustainably manage forest ecosystems to maximize environmental and societal benefits."

The researchers suggest that forest managers take all these variables into consideration as they try to maximize the flow of timber, carbon storage and albedo in high-latitude forests.

Lutz and Howarth are awaiting their study's approval for publication, but they plan to present their results at American Geophysical Union's annual fall meeting in San Francisco on Dec. 12.