Posts Tagged ‘sequestration’

Recently, we published discussions related to various risks associated with certain aspects of corporate carbon management programs – planning, calculations and reporting.  But we have had discussions with clients about other risks specifically posed by sequestration techniques. Today, a Reuters report provides stark evidence of the reality of a disastrous threat to forestry sequestration: the tiny pine beetle. Infestations of the insect cause huge impacts: In Colorado, aerial surveys show that from 1996 to 2008 Colorado lost almost 2.5 million acres (1 million hectares) of pine forest to the beetle outbreak, Wyoming 677,000 acres and South Dakota 354,000 acres. Over the same period of time, the spruce beetle, which has also ravaged forests as far north as Alaska, took out 374,000 acres of spruce trees in Colorado and 340,000 in Wyoming. That cumulative total of over 6 million acres (2.5 million hectares) is an area larger than Israel or South Africa’s Kruger National Park. As the excerpt states, this is the impact over 12 years.  Commercially-viable forestry sequestion projects typically span 15 to 30 years.  The article stated that Colorado-based U.S. Forest Service scientist Mike Ryan is concerned that pine beetle destruction may lead to forests changing from carbon sinks

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