Research (both in Finland and locally) confirms that riparian corridors are “biological hotspots” for both the woodland along the stream and for within the stream. However, the alteration of habitat due to logging significantly reduces the biodiversity in both areas, not just in the woodland. (Biological Conservation – Volume 170, February 2014, Pages 10-19, Woodland key habitats and stream biodiversity: Does small-scale terrestrial conservation enhance the protection of stream biota?  Heli Suurkuukka et al). This has been confirmed again and again, so it is important that we both educate residents about their impact on these fragile areas and that we ask that ordinances protecting riparian corridors be implemented and enforced.

Local research says that older forests accumulate more carbon than young forests: “The trees that are adding the most mass are the biggest ones, and that holds pretty much everywhere on Earth that we looked,” says Nathan Stephenson, an ecologist at the US Geological Survey in Three Rivers, California, and the first author of the study, which appears today in Nature1. “Trees have the equivalent of an adolescent growth spurt, but it just keeps going.”  Read the full article.

Betsy Herbert, former SLV Water District Watershed Analyst, reported in an article in The Sentinel Newspaper about a talk given by Dr. Will Russell entitled, “Logging, Fire, and the Recovery of Old-growth Coast Redwoods.” He too confirmed that older forests store carbon faster that young forests that appear to grow faster. He also provided the science behind whether thinning redwood forests is necessary to reduce fire hazard, demonstrating unequivocally that it is not necessary. Read the whole story.