Not every tree is good
for Hawaii’s environment

What happens to trees after they are
cut down determines whether they make
Earth a healthier place

I read Mike Wilson's Sept. 5 View Point column, "Commercial forestry will profit both land and people," on the emerging plan for forestry on the Big Island with interest, some relief and some regret. Serious, cautious intent to do the right thing economically, socially and environmentally shines through the column by Wilson, director of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

But an element not yet factored into the formula he describes is the role of new forest in "sinking" or sequestering carbon in wood, thereby cleaning excess carbon dioxide from our atmosphere.

Approximately 50 percent of the dry wood in most trees is carbon, photosynthesized from carbon dioxide in our air. This adds an important dimension to how we should evaluate new forest plantings.

On the face of it, one might think any tree is a good tree since it helps clean carbon from polluted air in this way.

But scientists define a continuum from "extremely helpful" to "makes no real difference," depending on how long the carbon remains stored in the wood.

Standing trees tie up excess carbon during their life. The denser the tree and the longer it stands, the more effective is this important role.

Our use of the harvested wood can then either extend carbon storage (sequestration) or end it, by returning the carbon to the air we breathe.

Use that wood to build your house and the carbon remains locked out of the atmosphere as long as the house stands.

Use it for solid wood furniture or artifacts, and the same is true. Use it for firewood and obviously its carbon is immediately returned to the air.

Leave it to rot on the forest floor and it takes a little longer, but naturally does much of the same thing.

The sad part is that our use for pulp, or for chip or for low-grade particle board, is almost as ineffective.

The products are usually short lived and end up in the landfill relatively soon, releasing carbon back to the air within a generation. Our children will breath that added carbon dioxide. So we'd be wise to discriminate between planting options as we develop forestry.

From this point of view, DLNR's plans to reserve 10 percent (500 acres) for tropical hardwoods is the best news about the proposed Oji Paper Co. plantings. Unfortunately, the 90 percent going to chips or process board may have no lasting environmental benefit.

Hopefully the balance of our 60,000 acres that Wilson hopes to see planted will consider carbon storage and include these longer-term air quality benefits.

There are also direct economic benefits to be realized by taking this aspect of new forest plantings into account.

Utility companies and other industries which burn our fossil fuels are increasingly inclined, as a measure of mitigation, to pay for new forest plantings via the emerging field of carbon credits or carbon offsets.

This works by state and local authorities requiring effective mitigation measures like new forestation plans, or reforestation, or guaranteed forest conservation, as part of the planning approval process.

On the Big Island, as an example, with our community mired in anxiety and discontent about the effect on our air quality of new power generation, we could, before granting permits, insist that the utility finance enough plantings to absorb more than the anticipated tonnage of carbon emitted by new facilities.

Offsetting the industrial use of our most efficient terrestrial carbon stores (oil/coal) in this way makes lasting sense. An accredited carbon credit brokerage process ensures that landowners are paid to undertake and maintain these new plantings.

Forestry's role in returning our oxygen/carbon balance is not widely understood. Its importance will be seen as we realize that, even with all the best emission controls eventually in place in developed societies, increasing industrial emissions -- on top of the post-industrial accumulation of carbon dioxide already aloft -- will prevent a net return to balance of the Earth's atmosphere.

Globally, the most positive choice is to rapidly accelerate tree planting.

If in Hawaii, we start to value new plantings of koa and our other naturally occurring hardwoods as a truly long-term "carbon sink" in addition to their aesthetic and conventional commercial value, we will be paid to plant them, get ahead of the curve economically and make a lasting improvement to the environment.

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Lionel Kutner, a marketing and communications
consultant, is president of the Trees for Life Foundation in Captain
Cook, Hawaii. The foundation was formed to accelerate tree planting
worldwide by providing funding and technical support. The opinion
in Other Views columns are the authors' and are not necessarily
shared by the Star-Bulletin.