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Environmental Group Unveils Plan to Manage Forests

February 18, 2009 - Millions of acres of the state's woods would be designated as a special forest zone in order to draw more pollution from the air and slow the impact of climate change under a campaign proposed Tuesday by a Maine environmental group.

Jonathan Carter, director of the Forest Ecology Network, said he hopes such a designation would be the first step toward a national effort to mitigate the effects of what he called the "climate disaster" of global warming.

The thrust of the plan is to encourage landowners to manage their forests in a way that would maximize how much carbon would be drawn out of the air to counteract the pollution that is put into the air from power plants, vehicles and other sources, Carter said.

His proposal would use federal funds to pay landowners to manage their lands using specified forestry practices. Foresters recommend eliminating clear-cutting, using methods that don't cause erosion and chopping down old and dead trees.

Maine is the nation's most heavily forested state. More than 17.7 million acres, or 90 percent of the state land base, are covered with trees, according to the Maine Forest Service.

Under the Forest Ecology Network's proposal, about 10.2 million acres would be put into what Carter is calling a designated "national carbon sequestration forest." Maine's woods, he said, have the potential to double their level of carbon storage, which would remove a huge amount of carbon from the atmosphere.

Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air as part of the photosynthesis process in making wood, Carter said. At the same time, the process helps reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere that is contributing to global warming, he said.

BY CLARKE CANFIELD
Associated Press Writer , 2/18/09


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