5 Things to Imagine into Being this World Forests Day

Before anything can be done it first has to be imagined – from the wheel to the light bulb to the end of slavery. This World Forests Day let’s imagine things that make protecting forests worldwide possible…and that make our lives better. Here are five achievable steps towards healthier forests – because change is possible.

1. Imagine if leaving forests standing was as profitable as cutting them down. Forests do more for us than just stand there and look pretty. They store carbon, which is more and more important as our carbon emissions skyrocket. Old growth forests are like an inherited carbon bank account. Carbon credit markets could give a financial reward for not logging threatened forests, and thereby helping to regulate our climate.
2. Imagine if the province of British Columbia logged half as much while generating 50% more jobs. Instead of exporting logs and low value 2x4s, we could decrease logging and increase jobs if companies were required to foster local economies through higher value-wood product manufacturing.
3. Imagine if houses built across North America were a reasonable size, not over-sized McMansions. We could log 30% less forests for home-building. I know the in-laws can be tough to deal with when they come to visit, but it sure is costing us a lot of trees…
4. Imagine that all paper has to have 50% recycled content. Half as many forests would be logged for paper!
5. Imagine that the ecosystem services that forests provide for free, like water filtration, protection against climate change, oxygen production, homes for species (including us!) and soil stabilization were recognized as essential life support systems and protected under our constitution.

Every year the existing plants of the world absorb and release 8% of the carbon in the atmosphere. That means that every 12 years all the carbon atoms in the atmosphere will have spent time on earth in plants. Pretty spectacular, huh? So it’s really quite simple: the more forests, the more carbon is absorbed. The more long-lived plants, like those beautiful redwood forests of northern California or cedars of British Columbia, the longer carbon stays on Earth. That’s a very good thing for combating climate change. And under the forest’s canopy, amidst the tall carbonaceous trunks and soils, life teams in ways that speak to our imaginations.

ForestEthics will be working hard to marshal our communities’ and governments’ imaginations to achieve the five actions for healthy forests:

1. We will ensure that British Columbia’s beautiful Great Bear Rainforest is safeguarded, with logging rates significantly reduced and 70% of the natural range of old forests conserved for species. We’ll also help to develop a new economy independent of the old-style logging.
2. We will protect woodland caribou and their habitat in the great Boreal forest of Canada (we’re looking at you, Alberta tar sands mining).
3. We will collaborate with First Nations in places like Clayoquot Sound to ensure that rare intact old growth valleys are conserved for generations to come.
4. We will make the marketplace forest friendly. Because how we behave towards forests shows up mainly as how we do or don’t buy wood, paper and cellulose products.
5. We will help build an understanding that protecting forests is good for climate and species – and that, ultimately, that is good for us all.

We can imagine doing that. It’s what we love to do. Happy World Forests Day.