First of all, thank you for…

First of all, thank you for the great and informative workshop in Thunder Bay. It's a great initiative and I will be very interested to see how the policy unfolds. Looking forward to its incorporation into forest management policy framework.

I feel that in order to make the policy more defensible, it should be based on holistic view of ecosystems rather than concentrating on separate components of systems' mitigation potential. Specifically, I would argue that Figure 5 and 6 do not reflect reality of carbon sequestration and storage potential of forest ecosystems.

During the workshop it was clarified that these figures are based on carbon sequestration and storage in the living oversory trees. While it is true that the carbon content starts to decline as trees overmature, several studies have shown that the old forests keep acting as carbon sink. This effect in very well described in a meta-analysis by Luyssaert et al (Nature, 455(7210), pp.213-215). Although tree mortality increases as stands enter the old-growth stage, the decomposition of tree stems can take decades. In an old-growth forest, regeneration that fills the gaps takes place in much faster than decomposition. As a result, the authors suggest that CO2 release from the decomposition of dead wood is likely equal to or lesser than the CO2 uptake by regeneration. This ‘self-thinning’ theory predicts that the ratio between ecosystem respiration (releasing CO2) and NPP (fixing CO2) is constant and around 0.65+0.02, indicating that even old forests remain a carbon sink. The additional carbon is accumulated in soils and down woody debris and the amount of carbon sequestered in these sources and in charcoal will remain higher even after sporadic disturbances. Wardle et al (Science, 300(5621), pp.972-975.) pointed out that even though the carbon uptake slows down as productivity declines over time, the old-growth forest tends to contain significantly more carbon than young forest and contribute to the increased cumulative carbon stored in the landscape. Soil organic matter decomposition rates continue to decline over time owing to decreased microbial activity and litter quality. As a result, old-growth forests should be considered important carbon sinks, and Figures 5 and 6 unfairly reduce the carbon sequestration and storage potential of aging forest. I am not an expert in life cycle analysis, but I doubt that wood products would store equivalent (or higher!) amount of carbon, especially considering emissions from delivering wood to mill gate through mills to consumer.

I would suggest changing the tone of the paper from harvesting helps to increase carbon sequestration and storage (which it arguably does not) to one that recognises forestry as important natural resource sector, renewable resource, and provider of local communities, and states that by changing certain practices significant mitigation effect could be achieved COMPARED to conventional forest management/operational practices.

In spring 2016, KBM completed a project for CBFA: "Practical Guide for Boreal Forest Management Practices That Mitigate Climate Change". The intent of the report was to provide a list of stand and landscape level best practices to forest practitioners that would enable achieving mitigation effect compared to status quo forestry. This included both sequestration/storage and reducing emissions from forest operations. The project contact was Christine Burow - cburow@borealagreement.ca. Many interviews with forest industry representatives and lit review were conducted to identify operational and management planning mitigation practices. In the same time CBFA also had extensive life-cycle project going on, which may also be of interest for the Forest Carbon Policy team.

KBM's report emphasised that any management decision that is made to contribute to the climate change mitigation needs to take into consideration underlying assumptions of additionality, leakage, longevity and risks to the carbon storage. To be meaningful, the mitigation effect needs to be assessed on the area of a company’s influence (e.g. wood procurement area) to avoid false positive estimates of mitigation effect from management strategies in selected stands. Fore example, Triad approach could be used to increase old-growth forest, while maintaining wood supply with intensive practices near mills and infrastructure. Tree improvement was found to be the least involved and probably also least expensive method to increase carbon sequestration and storage on landscape level through increased tree growth, volume of per ha, and healthier and more stress resistant trees. That's because even if kg improved seed cost is one to two magnitudes higher from wild seed cost, it still composes only a small fraction of total silviculture cost (nursery, planting, tending). BC has made using improved seed, if available, as legal requirement and after over 10 years later, interviewed BC industry reps were favour of the program as also economic benefits of the improved seed are becoming apparent.

Hope you will find this input helpful and thanks again for pursuing such important topic in Ontario forest policy.

Happy New Year!

Triin hart

[Original Comment ID: 207337]