Public Land, Timber Harvests, and Climate Mitigation: Quantifying Carbon Sequestration Potential on U.S. Public Timberlands

To help decision makers understand the carbon implications of potential changes in public timberland management, we compared a baseline timber harvest scenario with two alternative harvest scenarios and estimated annual carbon stock changes associated with each. Our analysis found that a "no timber harvest" scenario eliminating harvests on public lands would results in an annual increase of 17-29 million metric tons of carbon per year between 2010 and 2050, as much as a 43 percent increas over current sequestration levels on public timberlands and would offset up to 1.5 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.