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Study: Clear-Cutting Forests Loosens Carbon in Soil, Worsens Climate Change

Clearcutting, a long-standing debate

The negative environmental consequences of clearcutting forests have been discussed for many decades, as some critics consider the practice to be an act of deforestation that destroys natural habitats and contributes to global warming.

Clearcutting is the practice of cutting down all trees from a specific location instead of selectively choosing mature trees to cut down, which results in a complete clearing of the harvested land. Clearcutting detractors point to obvious atmospheric impacts stemming from the loss of trees, and to other consequences that result from dramatically impacted lands, such as mudslides and the warming of rivers. All told, critics point to multiple negative impacts on the atmosphere, as well as nearby wildlife and flora.

Proponents of the practice, on the other hand, argue against some of the common criticism and have their own arguments as to why proper clearcutting techniques can be employed and cite their own scientific, safety, and economic benefits.

Dartmouth College research

Recent research from Dartmouth College looked at clearcutting from a different perspective. Researchers set out to analyze how clearcutting directly affects the forest soil of the impacted region, and, ultimately, how the process may or may not affect the local atmosphere.

According to the study, soil is Earth’s “largest terrestrial carbon pool,” and soil in hardwood forests in northern parts of the U.S. can store up to half of all carbon in that local ecosystem. With that in mind, researchers collected soil in the U.S. Northeast from both recently clear-cut forests and from older, mature (untouched) forests. They then analyzed the carbon content of the soil samples and discovered distinct differences between the soil of mature lands and the soil of recently clear-cut lands.

Ultimately, the researchers discovered that clearcutting loosens up the carbon stored in forest soils, which greatly increases the odds that the carbon will be released to the atmosphere and contribute to climate change.

Mobilizing carbon

Senior author of the study, Andrew Friedland, who is also a professor of environmental studies, pointed out that the results of the study showed that clearcutting land mobilizes the carbon in the soil, “making it [carbon] more likely to leave the soil and end up in the atmosphere.” He called the findings important in that they will help scientists better understand carbon dioxide production in ecosystems after clear-cutting.

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