Manage My Woods for Carbon Storage

This comprehensive guide by the Nature Conservancy and the Northern Institute of Applied Climate Sciences presents a lot of climate-smart forest management practices for your woods. The “Manage forests” section includes timber harvesting practices that can help your woods store as much carbon as possible.

This publication from UMass Amherst Extension is written for private forest owners and explains where carbon is stored in a forest and lays out different “carbon-informed forest management” options including passive and active approaches.

Pruning encourages new growth, which means bigger trees and more carbon storage.

Removing certain poor quality trees can create more growing space for your stronger trees to grow bigger faster, which means more carbon storage in your forest over time.

Young trees grow faster and sequester carbon at a faster rate than older ones. Establish young forest on your property with a timber harvest to take advantage of this phenomenon.