Forest Carbon Reserve

Forests store more carbon per acre than any other terrestrial ecosystem on the planet; they need to be the nation’s first line of climate change defense. What’s left of high-biomass primary (old-growth) forests in the U.S.are largely on federally-owned lands where significant but incomplete conservation agreements have secured some protections. We need to protect them completely, and this is why Sierra Club advocates for the creation of a national Forest Carbon Reserve that would identify and protect carbon-dense primary forests, as well as areas best suited for ecologically-appropriate restoration, afforestation and “proforestation.”