Los Angeles Times - 08.09.2019

LATIMES.COM S SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2019A25

OP-ED

“O

n the seventhday, “ so
says the Old Testament,
“God rested.” A major rea-
son the Almighty could af-
ford to relax is that he cre-
ated plants on the third day, approximately
3 billion years ago, designed to sustain
Earth’s protective atmosphere forever-
more. Until quite recently, these plants —
trees in particular — have been doing God’s
work to near perfection, inhaling carbon di-
oxide in silent service to nature and
mankind, playing their providential role as
“the lungs of the planet.”
Over the last weeks, the devastating
fires in the Amazon forests have captured
the attention of a global audience, making a
significant portion of the American public
aware of our longstanding dependence on
forests, especially tropical forests, that
soak up and store the carbon that humans
keep sending into the atmosphere.
As the Brazilian forests burn, then, we
are witnessing not just another devastat-
ing forest fire but the destruction of na-
ture’s age-old shield against the warming of
the planet. It’s happening at the same time
that warming’s effects are mounting: fero-
cious hurricanes, record high tempera-
tures, dying coral reefs, melting glaciers, in-
creasing floods and droughts. More than
Donald Trump’s latest gaffe, or the poll
numbers of the Democratic candidates for
president, this is the real breaking news
now: “Rainforests go, and so do we.”
Rainforests, from the Tongass in Alaska
to the heart of Borneo in Indonesia, are car-
bon-dense forests, but it is tropical rain-
forests that are the designated champions
of absorbing and storing our carbon emis-
sions now.
Taken together, the forests of the Ama-
zon, the Congo Basin and the Indonesian
archipelago store half of global forest car-
bon and absorb an additional 3 billion met-
ric tons of carbon annually, offsetting a
third of our fossil fuel emissions. They do
this for free. Their global respiration is evi-
dent in images from NASAshowing their in-
take of carbon dioxide exhaled from the
world’s industrial centers.
Over the last half-century, as carbon
emissions have increased dramatically, the
earthly trinity of these tropical forests has
also increased its rate of carbon sequestra-
tion. It is almost as if the trees are talking to

each other, urging themselves to try harder

to accomplish their preordained mission,

sensing they are losing the battle.

Once we recognize that we have such

potent natural allies in our quest to save

civilization, it follows that we need to up our

effort to protect forests in general, and es-

pecially tropical rainforests.

Think of the earthly trinity as a global

trust fund for our grandchildren, Earth’s

built-in natural climate solution. If these

forests are protected and expanded, the

fund achieves naturally what we are cur-

rently spending billions in geoengineering

research to achieve technologically, thus

far with mixed results and, therefore, omi-

nous implications.

Another way to think of the tropical

rainforests is as our global commons. The

forest trinity represents the three places on

Earth we all have a vested interest in de-

fending — a gift from God entrusted to us

as stewards. All member nations at the G-7

meeting in France in August, save one,

seem to grasp what is at stake. Financial

support for sustaining tropical forests

needs to become an international responsi-

bility and a priority.

Protecting and restoring forests is

sometimes framed as too costly, , but inno-

vative approaches can and should accom-

modate both people and nature. In Mada-

gascar, community mangrove stewardship

protects a crucial carbon repository and

the villagers who depend on the mangroves

for multiple uses. In Mississippi, rural land-

owners are financially rewarded for restor-

ing bottomland forests, which benefits peo-

ple, wildlife and the waterways. And in the

tropics, new modes of sustainable forest

management are coming online to permit

logging with limited impact on carbon stor-

age.

Alone, trees cannot save us. In fact, they

are losing the battle against the resurrec-

tion of their own ancestors in the form of

fossil fuels. Salvation will require us to stop

burning long dead trees and make the tran-

sition to renewable forms of energy. In the

meanwhile, living trees will continue their

preordained role of breathing for all of us, if

we let them.

Peter W. Ellisis a forest ecologist.

Joseph J. Ellisis a Pulitzer Prize-winning

American historian.

WHAT WEare witnessing with the burning of the Brazilian forests is not just a devastating fire, but the destruction of a shield against the warming of the planet.

Leo CorreaAssociated Press

The Amazon

rainforest still burns

By Peter W. Ellis and Joseph J. Ellis

I

n the farawayAmazon, politics and

commercial exploitation are fueling

fires that threaten the world’s largest

tropical rainforest. Closer to home, in

Alaska, the Tongass National Forest,

which represents the largest intact tem-

perate rainforest, is facing a serious threat

of its own: President Trump’s determined

rollback of environmental protections. In

both cases, land belonging to all citizens is

at risk because of the financial ambitions of

afew.

According to a report in the Washington

Post, Trump has ordered Agriculture Sec-

retary Sonny Perdue to change Forest Serv-

ice policy and open more than half of the

Tongass — 9.5 million acres — to the con-

struction of new roads, effectively encour-

aging development such as large-scale

commercial logging of old growth trees.

The Tongass covers a huge area of the

Alaskan panhandle. It is largely unde-

veloped, it’s a carbon storehouse and it’s a

fish factory. The Forest Service reports that

the Tongass produces 25% of the West

Coast’s commercial salmon catch. Fishing

and tourism, which depend on a healthy for-

est, bring in more than $2 billion to Alaska

annually by one estimate. They account for

26% of local jobs; logging accounts for less

than 1%.

The president’s directive would undo 20

years of relative stability on the Tongass

that was created by the enactment of the

Roadless Area Conservation Rule in 2001.

As former Forest Service employees, we

helped to develop the roadless rule. Under-

standing its context is important to under-

standing the threat to the Tongass today.

In the late 1990s, before the roadless rule

went into effect, the Tongass and other re-

mote forests were the subject of constant

controversy and litigation over timber sales

and road construction. As is still the case,

timber sales on the Tongass lost money and

were heavily subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.

Adding insult to injury, much of the wood

that was harvested was shipped across the

ocean to Asia.

By 1998, the Forest Service had con-

structed more than 380,000 miles of roads in

the national forests, largely to aid timber

production. The agency also carried an

$8.5-billion maintenance backlog on man-

agement of those roads. When forest roads

are not maintained, they erode and slide

into streams, muddying drinking water

sources and ruining fish habitat.

Many inside the Forest Service and in

Congress rightly began to question why the

agency would build more roads into rela-

tively pristine areas when it could not take

care of the roads already in place. Lawmak-

ers rebelled. As a surrogate to protect road-

less areas, in 1997, the House of Representa-

tives came within a single vote of cutting the

Forest Service’s road budget by 80%. This

would have crippled the agency and jeopar-

dized public access and use of the national

forests. President Clinton stepped in, di-

recting the agency to develop a new policy

for managing untouched forests.

The result was stronger protection of

roadless areas. More than a million people

commented on the proposal, and more

than 90% favored keeping new roads to a

minimum in pristine forests. The final rule

allowed for new road construction on a

case-by-case basis, for firefighting, forest

health, energy development and access to

private holdings, but it seriously restricted

new timber sales. Since the rule was en-

acted, the Forest Service has approved all

58 project requests it has received for roads

in Alaska’s national forests.

Nevertheless, Alaska’s congressional

delegation and its governor, pushed pri-

marily by logging interests, want an exemp-

tion from the roadless rule. But decisions

about our shared land shouldn’t be made at

the behest of special interests. They should

be made by professional land managers

and informed by science — not politics.

The roadless rule has served our na-

tional forests well. It affirms a basic truth.

Most Americans value their public lands for

the clean water, healthy habitat and recre-

ational opportunities they provide. Over a

century ago, President Theodore Roose-

velt’s secretary of Agriculture, James Wil-

son, wrote that national forests should be

managed for “the greatest good for the

greatest number for the long run.” We urge

the president and Secretary Perdue to fol-

low this sage advice and do what is best for

the long-term health of the land and future

generations of Americans.

Mike Dombeckwas chief of the U.S. Forest

Service from 1997 to 2001. Chris Wood is the

president and chief executive of Trout

Unlimited.

PRESIDENT TRUMP wants to undo protections for more than half of the Tongass National Forest, encouraging large-scale logging of old growth trees.

Michael PennJuneau Empire

New peril for an

American rainforest

By Mike Dombeck and Chris Wood