Why Wonder Earth?

When we start looking at the physical reality of carbon sequestration by forests, we should focus on the carbon cycle. Trees take in carbon dioxide through their leaves for photosynthesis, turn the materials into sugars that are water soluble, and then draw that sugar water into the cambium for wood growth. The surface area available to do photosynthesis depends on the number of leaves produced, which is a function of the age of the tree. As the tree develops, it becomes more effective at gathering the CO2 feedstock and the growth is apparent as increased size of the tree.

The international mechanism of the Kyoto accords sets an arbitrary date of 1990 for forest plantations to be considered carbon sinks. It uses a concept called additionality to govern whether a pre-1990 forest is a carbon sink. The basis is that a specific management practice that increased sequestration beyond natural growth is worth money. For instance, the elongation of a logging rotation by 20 years provides atmospheric carbon removal for that 20-year period that would not otherwise happen. Thus, the extra carbon is eligible as carbon credit for sale in the international marketplace. However, standing forests on their own do not provide a mechanism for additionality, the target of the accord, so they cannot be used for credit.

This argument encourages the deforestation of existing forests, producing timber and related wood products, while promoting the planting of monoculture tree farms as replacement vehicles for carbon credit. Fast growing wood, like KMX pine and Super2 will replace older hardwoods like oak and madrone as the defining trees on the landscape. This will be accompanied by a concomitant loss of biodiversity, soil structure and sequestration ability. A freshly planted tree requires many years to become a net carbon sink that has a viable affect on the atmospheric carbon content.

A mature tree has the ability to sequester carbon throughout its full living lifetime. Once the tree dies, it provides the forest with resources, such as animal habitat in snags and nutrients in decomposing downed wood for another half lifetime. The mass balance of forested lands depends on returning a portion of the wood to soil development, not just removing all the wood in a regenerative harvest and then burning the slash and starting a new tree plantation.
The Kyoto mechanism should be used to protect and conserve existing forests and to allow the development of replacement old growth forests for the deforested lands of the past century and a half. Here in the Umpqua Watershed, we have 50% of our catchment basin protected (?!) under federal control via the Bureau of Land Management and the Umpqua National Forest (United States Forest Service).

The rest of the forestland under private ownership is a mixture of timber industry owned lands and the property of private individuals. Economic and political pressures in a rural community cause these private individuals to convert the timber to lumber, firewood, or pulp and fiber. Carbon based management provides an economic incentive to the land-owners to manage their property as a carbon sink and thus allow the trees to grow to maturity and encourage a range of biodiversity. It would also provide incentive to create a wider range of trees in the forest, rather than focusing on timber producing conifers at the expense of hardwoods.
Wonder Earth Partners LLC is for woodlot owners to pool their assets and have enough material to approach the international carbon marketplace. Our services will include evaluation of the carbon assets and development of a natural resource strategy for encouraging reforestation of marginal agricultural lands harvested in the past century.
By establishing an alternative income stream via the carbon credits, we would encourage industry to extend rotations to allow the trees to increase their volume. This takes advantage of the portion of the tree life cycle that currently is unavailable due to the economic pressures favoring a short, quick rotation.

The mass balance of current forest practices is not viable over century timeframes. The European model for rotational forest management has demonstrated that two to three 80-year rotations depletes the forest of the nutrients necessary to sustain forest growth. Mazur in his 1996 book Sustainable Forestry demonstrates that an adaptive management strategy would provide a means to encourage people to reach forward beyond next quarter's balance sheet. Wonder Earth Partners promote mechanisms to ensure posterity of the ability to study old growth forests, as compared to mid-growth and young growth forests and tree plantations.

Leonard J. Schussel, PhD
Wonder Earth Partners, LLC
Myrtle Creek, Oregon, USA