In any reckoning of carbon sequestration or release it’s perfectly obvious that a country should include *all* it’s forests in the equation, not just the stuff planted after 1990. Many nations have a good record here, the UK, US, NZ and Japan have done an excellent job of protecting their natural forests over many decades and longer.. they have made conscious efforts to conserve them even at some cost to themselves.. yet these aren’t in any Kyoto inventory.

Paradoxically, there’s another reason for including old growth forests in an inventory.. old protected forests grow old and die and release CO2, possibly faster than any new growth can counterbalance. Add in poorly controlled pests like animals and disease and the CO2 balance might be tipping towards net emissions. If we are serious about CO2 sequestration and emissions we should be taking this longer and more holistic view.

JC