Tree Speech

Two very different reports point out the value of trees, not only in combating global warming but in helping weak economies. The Giving Trees tells about an Oregon scientist whose research refutes the belief that old forests do not absorb carbon.

Law’s data show that this 90-year-old forest is, in fact, at the peak of its ability to absorb carbon. The uptake of carbon by ponderosa pines increases gradually, then reaches a plateau at some point between 50 years and 90 years. Once this plateau is reached, the trees and the soil will together continue to form a rich bank of stored carbon that cannot be equaled by any newly sprouted stand. During her work in California and the Pacific Northwest, she’s found forests as old as 800 years that continue to absorb more carbon than they release.

Mexico: The Business of Saving Trees is a story of how one woman has created a biosphere…

Pati Ruiz Corzo is the director of the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve, a protected area about the size of Rhode Island that is a five-hour drive north of Mexico City. When she left her teaching job in the city and moved to the region 25 years ago searching for a simpler life, she found the place littered with trash and stripped of much of its natural vegetation. She decided it would be her life’s work to restore the forest and to create new jobs for the people living in the biosphere.

Not only has she has boosted her community’s economy, she has brought water back. How strange that in Texas, folks claim that we have to destroy trees to help the aquifer.

Corzo’s efforts are beginning to transform the once-depleted landscape into a thriving habitat with fertile topsoil, a replenished water table and an abundance of newly planted vegetation. She’s also developing an eco-tourism industry with rustic lodge accommodations and craft shops for local artisans. It’s already a popular destination for birdwatchers. But Margolis also learns that many of the men in the community still head to the United States to find work, as they struggle to support their families off the local land.

Now with carbon trading a hot “commodity,” Corzo sees an opportunity to use her forest to raise money on the carbon market.