Earlier this week Trump ordered that vast areas of American forests be cut down to help the economy by rejuvenating the logging industry. Many of these areas, specified in his Executive Order, are protected habitat for endangered species. Many include what little is left of America’s old growth forests, containing trees that are, in some places, literally thousands of years old. Of course, biologists, zoologists, ecologists and mainstream as well as more edgy environmental groups are speaking out against this latest Executive Order. That’s to be expected. But the toll of such broad destruction of the forests is much, much worse than ‘just’ losing a bunch of old trees and a few animals and birds that almost no one ever sees. It may be the death knell for the last chance to stop our planet reaching 2C above pre-industrial norms, a limit that is increasingly looking much more dangerous for a healthy and safe planet than anyone expected.
Trees are incredibly important for the health of our planet, and only recently have their multiple contributions to that health been fully appreciated, even by scientists. Forests, for example, breathe out (called expiration) moisture which helps moderate rainfall over surprisingly vast areas. Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, for example, has helped cause drought in Texas, thousands of kilometres away. We all know that trees help hold soil in place during floods and high winds, important as the land loses 24 BILLION tonnes of topsoil every year to wind and water erosion, creating deserts where once there was fertile land, and reducing depth of soil for growing crops. On its own, soil can take 100 years to regenerate, so this loss is huge. 100 million square kilometres of once fertile agricultural land turn to desert every year all over the world largely because of erosion.
Trees don’t only stop erosion, but they also lessen the efffects of flooding. A mature tree can absorb almost 42,000 litres (11,000 gallons) of water over one growing season, meaning that water doesn’t go further to flood bulidings and drown crops. California can attest to the fact that, following the devastation of wildfires, flooding once the rain comes is far, far worse, in areas where the trees were burned to the ground than areas where trees are still standing. Landslides are also caused by deforested slopes collapsing as water rushes down slopes once stabilised by thirsty trees.
Counter-intuitively, trees also help stop wildfires. Dense, damp forests are harder to burn than well-spaced, airy tree plantations. Also, broad leaf, hardwood trees burn differently, and more slowly, than softwood ‘needle’ trees like pine and fir. Mixed wood forests are much harder to burn than typical forestry ‘plantations’ where all the trees are of one fast-growing species. Even in deforested areas, wildfires can spread at super speeds if there are any other fuel sources available, like grasslands that replace forests, or buildings built where forests once stood.
Trees provide oxygen, of course, which is fairly important for most of the species on Earth to survive, but, in these days of climate change, trees breathe in carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas of most concern in climate change. That is why, thanks to the Paris Agreement, most countries are planting mixed-wood forests wherever they can, and reducing deforestation. We need all the trees we can get taking in CO2 while we work to reduce the emissions that produce the CO2 in the first place. Under Trump, who is emphasising excavation and burning of fossil fuels, this large-scale deforestation is particularly dangerous, as both create more CO2.
We also need to remember that, every time a tree is felled, almost all the CO2 it has absorbed in its life is then released back into the atmosphere. That means that it is particularly important that old growth forests are left alone. The US and Canada have very little old growth forest left: less than 1%. In British Columbia, Canada, for example. Old growth forests are incredibly important for the health of the planet, we now know, so it is particularly important that what tiny bit is left is not cut down. If Trump has his way, there will be no old growth forests left in the US in the next few years.
According to multiple scientific studies, forests perform hundreds of millions of dollars of environmental services every year (between $1000-$4000 per hectare depending on the place and type of forests and so on), that we don’t even notice, but, once they are gone, we would have to find some way to provide those services ourselves. Keeping the remaining forests on the planet intact and adding more trees in places where there are few or no trees would decrease our economic costs and dangers such as floods, wildfires and climate change. Removing those trees will help make our planet less and less habitable and will cause the deaths and displacement of billions of people, as well as having a negative effect on the economy, both short and long term.
So all of us, but particularly Americans, need to protest any wholesale deforestation plans. We all depend on forests far more than we know. We can all help by planting trees wherever and whenever possible, and making sure those trees thrive. But we need to make it clear to governments all over the world that reforestation and ‘rewilding’ projects have to be a priority. Nowhere is this message more important right now than in the US.
(5 March, 2025)
Comentarios