Two recent newspaper articles on two different continents discuss the role of wildfire and how it may be connected in various ways to climate change, by reducing or worsening it.
The article in the New York Times covers the health of forests and how big, healthy trees soak up and store carbon dioxide, and how important it is to prevent fires which emit carbon into the atmosphere.
Conversely, an Australian organization, West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement (WALFA), is promoting prescribed fire as a tool to prevent bushfires or wildfires which would emit more carbon into the atmosphere than the much smaller prescribed fires. Their “indigenous fire management technique” has led to a landmark greenhouse gas offset agreement between a giant oil company, ConocoPhillips, and the indigenous peoples in west Arnhem Land in Australia. They expect the project to produce at least 1 million tons worth of carbon credits annually while creating 200 new jobs. WALFA members will attend the climate change talks in Copenhagen to propose that similar projects be adopted in the savannas of Africa, where the potential for carbon reduction is huge.
Thanks Dick
