‘Proforestation’ Separates People from Forests by Nick Smith, Healthy Forests Healthy Communities
“P
roforestation” is a relatively new term in the environmental community. The Sierra Club defines it as: “extending protections so as to allow areas of previously-logged forest to mature, removing vast amounts of atmospheric carbon and recovering their ecological and carbon storage potential.” Not only must we preserve untouched forests, proponents argue, but we must also walk away from previously-managed forests too. People should be entirely separate from forest ecology and succession. Except humans have managed forests for millennia. In North America, Indigenous communities managed forests and sustained its resources for at least 8,000 years prior to European settlement. It is true people have not always managed forests sustainably. Forest practices of the late 19th century are a good example.
82
JANUARY 2023
Forest management provides tools to storage or climate change across all forcorrect past mistakes and restore ecosys- ested landscapes.” tems. But Proforestation even seems to Proforestation doesn’t work when reject forest restoration that helps return a forests convert from carbon sinks into forest to a healthy state, including con- carbon sources. A United Nations report trolling invasive species, maintaining tree pointed out that at least 10 World Heritage diversity, returning forest composition and sites – the places with the highest formal structure to a more natural state. environmental protections on the planet Proforestation is not just a philosophical – are net sources of carbon pollution. This exercise. The goal is to ban active forest includes the iconic Yosemite National management on public lands. It has real Park. policy implications for the future manageThe Intergovernmental Panel on ment (or non-management) of forests and Climate Change (IPCC) recognizes active how we deal with wildfires, climate change forest management will yield the highest and other disturbances. carbon benefits over the long term because We’ve written before about how this of its ability to mitigate carbon emitting concept applies to so-called “carbon disturbance events and store carbon in reserves.” Now, powerful and well-funded harvested wood products. Beyond carbon, anti-forestry groups are pressuring the forest management ensures forests conBiden Administration to set-aside national tinue to provide assets like clean water, forests and other federally-owned lands wildlife habitat, recreation, and economic under the guise of “protecting mature and activity. old-growth” trees. In its recent white paper on Proforesta- Forest management offers strategies to manage forests for carbon sequestration and long-term tion, the Society of American Foresters storage. Proforestation rejects active stewardship writes that “preservation can be appropri- that can not only help cool the planet, but help meet ate for unique protected areas, but it has not the needs of people, wildlife and ecosystems. You can been demonstrated as a solution for carbon expect to see this debate intensify in 2023.
▫