Conservationist urges carbon reserves in U.S. forests

October 21, 2009

Rocky Barker, Idaho Statesman
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Excerpts:

William Meadows, president of the Wilderness Society, a national group that seeks to preserve wildlands, called on Obama to set up a National Forest Trust, a series of federal reserves chosen on the basis of their carbon density, to store the substance that contributes to global warming when released.

… Meadows revealed his proposal Tuesday at a conference of the Frank Church Institute at Boise State University.

… The Wilderness Society is working with timber companies near Council on a plan to thin and log in the Payette National Forest to reduce the threat of fire. Meadows said the society also has offered to find a donor to invest in a lumber mill in Colorado, where there are none, so that similar so-called restoration management could be done there.

…Establishing a National Carbon Trust would demonstrate the U.S. commitment to fighting deforestation in the United States and help it persuade nations with tropical rain forests to protect them, he said. Tropical rain forests also are critical for storing carbon.

"You cannot teach temperance from a bar stool," Meadows said