Forests as part of the carbon cycle

In many ways, forests and forestry are involved in the natural circulation of carbon. During growth, atmospheric carbon is bound by forest plants and is again released either when the plants decompose naturally or when timber taken into use after felling is burned or otherwise decomposed. Generally, drainage also leads to a change in the carbon content of forest. The exhaust gases of forestry machinery cause carbon emissions into the atmosphere, but their impact is very small compared with the carbon flows caused by forest growth and felling.

Since the growth of forest plants decreases the amount of atmospheric carbon, one might conclude that forests prevent climate change . However, forests also release carbon into the atmosphere. Therefore forests can only act as carbon sinks if the amount of carbon released from them is smaller than the amount of carbon bound in them through growth.

The carbon sink effect can also be reached by using forest plants in energy production, if they are used to replace fossil fuels. This is why there is a general attempt to re-use products made of wood in energy production. For the same reason, the gathering in of logging residue is being intensified. The problems here are that it is costly and removes nutrients from the forest, especially if the soil is poor.

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