Trees both give and take when it comes to carbon dioxide. If forest management is to become one of the tools of nature-based climate solutions, the trick will be to ensure they continue to take more than they give. That doesn’t necessarily mean halting all logging in Canada, according to a new report by the Canadian Council of Academies, Nature-Based Climate Solutions. However, it does suggest changes in the way forests are managed. …The report recommends:

• For working forests… the elimination or reduction of slash burning.  
• The use of harvest waste for bioenergy, though it argues against the harvesting of whole live trees in boreal forests.
• Allowing trees to grow longer and larger before being cut, and harvesting trees as crops with replanting and commercial thinning.
• Prescribed burning as a way of reducing risks of wildfires.  
• Increasing stewardship by First Nations, and the sale of carbon credits.

Additional coverage by Nelson Bennett in Business in Vancouver: Nature based solutions play ‘modest’ role in climate mitigation