In September, the Dogwood Alliance and the Center for Sustainable Economy released a “study” claiming that the forest products industry is North Carolina’s “third largest carbon emitter” and that logging has “depleted the amount of carbon sequestered and stored on the land.”
It should be no surprise that this “report”, published by well-known, longtime anti-forestry activists, is highly misleading and provides a false portrayal of the forest products industry, its practices, and the state of forests in North Carolina. The study’s misrepresentation of basic math and the bias of the study’s authors demonstrate its lack of credibility.
Fact: North Carolina’s Forests Are A Growing Carbon Sink
In contrast to the study’s claims that the forest products industry is deforesting the state, forest acreage in North Carolina has actually grown in recent years. According to data from the USDA’s Forest Inventory and Analysis Service, North Carolina has gained over 150,000 acres of forest land since 2013.
In other words, North Carolina represents a growing carbon sink, because more forest land means more carbon sequestered from the atmosphere.
The world’s authoritative body on climate change research, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC), cites sustainable forest management, which is practiced by the forest products industry, as the path to generate “the largest sustained [carbon] mitigation benefit.” The IPCC explicitly considers that managed forests produce an “annual, sustained yield of timber, fiber, or energy from the forest,” and finds that this is the best way to maintain a growing carbon sink.
Why? Because the forest product industry grows forest land by providing landowners the incentive to grow more trees.
False Assumptions
The study assumes that the only alternative to sustainable, managed forests are “natural” forests with a greater capacity to absorb carbon. This represents a basic math error, because it’s a false choice. Private landowners have many options to choose what to do with their land. For instance, landowners can choose to use their land for development, clear forests for agriculture, or use the land to raise cattle. Dogwood assumes that the only alternative to managed forests are “natural” forests – that is simply false.
The forest products industry, including wood biomass, incentivizes landowners to keep and plant trees, as it provides landowners income if they sustainably manage forests on their property. Without these incentives, more landowners would use their land for other income-generating purposes. This is especially important in order to preserve forest acreage in North Carolina, since as the North Carolina Forestry Association notes, 85 percent of the state’s forests are privately owned.
Biased Against Forestry
Notably, the study was not completed by an independent institution or published in a peer-reviewed journal. It was prepared by John Talberth, who also happens to hold the title of President at the Center for Sustainable Economy, a Portland, Oregon-based activist group that has opposed logging for years. The study was published in partnership with the Dogwood Alliance, an Asheville, North Carolina-based activist group with a history of opposing any form of logging or use of paper products. The Dogwood Alliance’s Executive Director and Founder, Danna Smith, has publicly advocated for keeping forests “in the ground” and opposes the use of “wood and paper products.”
Given these facts, it’s obvious that this study was conducted in order to reach pre-determined conclusions against logging in North Carolina – not to find the truth.