Biodiversity vs. carbon sinks - an Oregon tale
When I tell people I grew up in Oregon, they usually have one of two reactions. Some faces tense as they try to place the state on their mental US map somewhere around Nevada (actually it’s on the Pacific coast, above California). Others light up because they’re about to say, “Oh, it’s beautiful there!”
If you don’t mind drizzling rain or hay fever - so much grass seed is grown in my native Willamette Valley that in summer the local paper prints the pollen count next to the weather forecast - it really can be pretty nice. There's a new PNAS article straight out of that valley, balancing the benefits of conserving its various lovely natural landscapes - wetlands, prairie, oak savannah, and conifer forests.
Managing land use to encourage these ecosystems can boost biodiversity and create carbon sinks that help mitigate climate change.
No, strike that: it can boost biodiversity or create sinks.
In my homeland, finds the study, the two trade off. The authors, led by Joshua Lawler of the University of Washington, modelled the results of hypothetical policies where rural landowners are paid not to farm certain types of land. Restoration of rare habitats like prairie would help out at-risk species, they found, but not improve carbon budgets. Preserving forests would do the reverse.
The effects on the pollen count apparently were not modelled.
The results are local. But planners in faraway places, too, are bound to find that sometimes cutting atmospheric carbon jibes with other environmental goals and sometimes it doesn’t.
Anna Barnett
Photos: farmlands (Stuart Seeger) and wetlands (Chris Phan) in the valley.
