As consensus grows about the serious impacts of global climate change, the important role of forests in carbon storage is increasingly recognized. U.S. forests currently capture about 10 percent of the carbon released from our country’s use of fossil fuels. They do this by accumulating (or sequestering) a growing “bank account” of forest carbon stores, but the rate of growth of this account has begun to slow in recent years. Reforestation of former cropland and restoration of depleted timberland were responsible for much of the growth in the U.S.
