Carbon sequestration research a priority

by Mattie Vandiver

Great Mountain Forest (GMF) recently became a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). IUCN is the world’s largest, and oldest, environmental organization, a global authority on the natural and environmental world. It has more than 1,400 member organizations from over 170 countries, benefits from the input of some 17,000 experts and holds a seat at the United Nations. 

For Great Mountain Forest, IUCN membership is an opportunity to link with national and international organizations, to be part of new projects and initiatives and to have a voice in important conversations on issues that impact forests, such as biodiversity and climate change. 

Tamara Muruetagoiena, director of GMF, says that they’ve already started to see some of these changes in the forest over the years, and that IUCN can help to identify and bring more attention to those changes. 

With membership in IUCN, the scientific research performed at GMF, its work in promoting sustainable forest management and its entry into the carbon-credit market are now accessible to a global audience. 

In addition to the IUCN, Great Mountain Forest is also part of the Forest Ecosystem Monitoring Cooperative and Governor Lamont’s Council on Climate Change. Through these groups, Muruetagoiena hopes to promote more research on carbon sequestration within forests. Carbon sequestration is the process of capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it in either liquid or solid form, thereby helping reduce the amount of carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere that causes global warming. “There’s a need for greater research on how forests sequester carbon and how it’s stored,” says Muruetagoiena. “Does carbon storage change based on different management practices?” 

For example, she continues, “We also don’t know exactly how the age of the trees is impacting that storage. We know that younger trees store less carbon and older trees store more carbon, but is there an age where the trees aren’t storing as much carbon? We need to promote this research to understand and have the complete picture.” She points to a potential project at GMF where plots of trees will be dedicated to this research. 

Muruetagoiena recently participated in an IUCN meeting where, as a new member organization, she presented about Great Mountain Forest to organizations across the United States. “That was the day that the U.S. rejoined the Paris Agreement,” she recalled, “so everybody was really happy because it impacts all of our organizations to have our voices heard in the world.”