Document Points to Potential of Forests and Forest Products to Mitigate Climate Change

The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (the Endowment) today joined Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and more than a dozen forest sector companies and organizations in releasing “A Forest Carbon Future.”  The report addresses the potential of U.S. forests, forest products manufacturers, and the range of forest products from paper to lumber to energy to contribute to solutions to global climate change.

“For more than a year a number of leaders from across the greater forest products sector have been considering ways that forests and forest products can play a role in climate change mitigation,” said Endowment President & CEO Carlton Owen.  “We were pleased to be both a financial contributor as well as an active participant in the forum that developed the report.”

The Forest Policy Forum, led by Endowment Board Member Colin Moseley who is Chairman of Seattle-based Green Diamond Resources, developed the report.  The work was designed to ensure that the conversation and evolving policy around carbon recognizes that forests and forests products are part of the solution as we move toward a lower carbon world.  The report emphasizes five principles: 1. Forests are part of the solution; 2. Support for healthy, resilient, and growing forests supports that solution; 3. Recognition of the positive carbon contribution of managed forests and forest products helps realize that solution; 4. Understanding public policy and market mechanisms and their effects on forests is key to the carbon solution; and, 5. Support innovation in the forest products sector that supports long-term benefits for addressing the carbon challenge.