Extinction.

Forest protection, once the “forgotten” climate solution, has become an integral pillar of climate discussions. But while attention has largely focused on forests like those of the Amazon and Indonesia, the climate doesn’t hinge just on what happens in the tropics. It also depends on the boreal; the temperate rainforests of the Pacific; the conifer forests of the Rockies; the Northeastern coastal forests; the Southern wetland forests. These forests in North America are being lost or stripped of carbon rich mature trees right under our noses and need to remain standing and intact if we are going to achieve a climate-safe, sustainable future. As the Biden administration looks to act on its to reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% by 2030, it needs to embrace a bold new vision for forest protection that looks at how we can protect the climate-critical forest resources in our own backyard. 

North America’s forests, the homelands of Indigenous communities and havens of rich biodiversity, are some of the most carbon-dense areas on Earth. These forests are part of the global forest respiratory system that, each year, absorbs one-third of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. They are also gatekeepers of vast stores of carbon locked safely out of the atmosphere in their soils and biomass. The Canadian boreal forest alone stores twice as much carbon as the world’s oil reserves, while U.S. forests collectively absorb the equivalent of about 12 percent of the nation’s annual carbon pollution. Their sentry stands between us and climate catastrophe.