Carbon can be stored in the forest...

In principle, forestry provides two ways of storing carbon, either in the forest or in forestry products. The carbon stores in the forests can be increased by increasing the forest area and by allowing the forests to develop towards a more natural state. This option also addresses some of the protection needs related to biodiversity.

However, the carbon stores in the forest cannot grow indefinitely. As the forest reaches a natural state, it will release more carbon through respiration, burning and decay than it has bound. Thus, this option can only be used once in one given forest area; moreover, it prevents the using of the trees for any other purpose – including the prevention of climate change.

If we were to increase the carbon store of Finnish forests, the net emissions of carbon dioxide would go down, but only for a time. As soon as we came to the end of that road, the total emissions would again begin to grow – assuming that human activity would remain the same in other respects. Meanwhile, we would have had to restrict forestry and forest industry to a considerable degree, because the use of its main raw material, timber, would have been restricted or even prohibited.

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