[Terrapreta] CEC

[lou gold]

Wayne,

I think that you have an interesting suggestion below.

First, let me give a little context. Fire normally plays a big role in most
forests (but not all). In the temperate zone the historical pattern was for
fire to move through a forest in several ways. There is very hot burning in
about 20% of the landscape doing what is called "full stand removal"
(killing everything) but in a patchwork mosaic that ultimately results in
diversification of the age of the forest across different areas. However,
across 80% of the forest landscape the fires burn with low to medium
intensity, mostly "clearing" out the understory and leaving the charred
remains on the forest floor to benefit the remaining larger trees whose
thick bark saved them from the low burning fire. This "natural" process was
unbalanced across the last one hundred years as humans mistakenly (Bambi
style) defined fire as a forest enemy. They began to suppress fire
indiscriminately which has resulted in enormous fuel loadings on the forest
floor. Brush, fallen branches, small trees that would have been cleared
periodically under the natural regime have now accumulated into larger and
larger fuel loadings that have resulted in larger and more catastrophic
fires, more CO2 release, more extensive damage, etc.

Therefore, there have been lots of proposals to "thin the forest." But you
know how it goes -- the programs get pushed toward cutting the more
commercially valuable (larger) trees and burning off or just leaving behind
the resulting slash. AND, there's just no financial feasible way to thin the
vast areas of young forestland. Dense young trees packed tightly together
are an explosive fireball waiting to be ignited by a lightning strike or a
careless cigarette. You might manually thin these areas (plantations and
natural) but it's going to be 1) expensive and 2) contribute more CO2 from
burning the slash.

What if there were carbon credits for charring the forest slash and leaving
it on-site -- supported by some kind of a mobile pyrolysis unit than could
clone the old way of low intensity wildfire but not risk the present dangers
of touching off a catastrophic fire? I would think that this is worth
investigating.

Please note that I indicated a preference for leaving the char on-site. For
forests on mountain slopes soil is precious, decaying woody debris is the
"feedstock" for new soil and soil is easily easily eroded during the very
heavy seasonal rains. Forest ecologists begin to fret when they see too much
biomass being removed. So, I'm less enthused about converting slash into
biofuels or char into charcoal to be used elsewhere.

hugs,

lou




One final comment.  Though I don't like the idea of charring trees, forests
> commonly produce a lot of woody material that outside the wet tropics will
> remain as forest floor debris for a long time.  Anti-fire advocates would
> love to see that cleaned up to prevent the huge fires we have seen in the
> west in the past two decades.  Why not char that?  You could reduce fire
> risk and improve soil at the same time.  To increase the soil organic matter
> you could compost the leaves and twigs, just charring the slightly bigger
> material.
>
> Wayne
>
>
>
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