How would reduced harvesting impact forest carbon emissions?
Reducing harvesting would not have a large impact on carbon dioxide emissions from Canada’s forests for several reasons. As part of sustainable forest management, less than 0.5% of the managed forest is harvested in any given year in Canada. These harvested areas regenerate to forest, so that in any year there is substantial new storage of carbon occurring on the areas previously harvested. As well, much of the carbon removed from the forest is stored in durable forest products like lumber. In addition, the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere from harvesting is small compared with the amount released due to forest fires and other natural disturbances like insect infestations. The area burned annually is, on average, 2.5 times larger than the area harvested; a big portion of the carbon goes up in smoke. Foresters recognize that fire is an important part of the life cycle of the many forests, and although governments and industry spend about half a billion dollars every year pr
