by @jacobresneck #EricStone #EdwardBoyda & #ClaytonAldern in @grist:

"The world depends on the Tongass, seen by many as 'the lungs of North America,' a vital resource for sequestering carbon. The Tongass currently holds 44 percent of all the carbon stored by U.S. national forests. While other forests often burn in wildfires, releasing the carbon sequestered by photosynthesis right back into the atmosphere, the rainforest of Southeast Alaska is different. Forest fires are relatively rare here. In fact, climatologists believe this part of the world will generally get wetter as global temperatures rise. So the Tongass isn’t just a carbon sink, it is a steady one — vital to the long-term fight against climate change. The Tongass 'is some of the most carbon-dense, old-growth rainforest in the world,' said Dominick DellaSala, an ecologist and chief scientist at the nonprofit Wild Heritage. 'Even more dense in carbon storage [per acre] than the tropical rainforest … What it comes down to is really abusive use of the rainforest. When you come in and you clear-cut — and you take out all the trees over an area as large as 40 acres, in some cases, private lands, it’s even larger — that just takes out all of the value of the forest. You lose most of the carbon, which goes up into the atmosphere.'”

https://grist.org/project/accountability/tongass-national-forest-roadless-rule-loophole/

#Tongass #Alaska #logging #trees #ClimateCrisis #ClimateChange #climate #environment #Grist