Working forests are the most powerful clean-air technology on earth.

By providing a continuing cycle of planting, growing and harvesting, active forest management optimizes a forest’s ability to sequester and store carbon and improves resiliency, maintaining the ability to sequester carbon in the future. At the landscape scale, managed forests are carbon sinks, reducing the net amount of CO2 in the atmosphere as they grow.

Alabama’s Forests:

• 23.1 million acres of forests cover 71% of the state. 

• Alabama’s forest carbon stock increased by 29% from 1990 to 2019.

• Carbon density in aboveground trees across Alabama averages 24.2 tons per acre.

• Forests, urban trees and harvested wood products in Alabama:

  • Remove 41% of all CO2 emissions in the state (compared to 14% nationwide).

  • Store the equivalent of 47 years of all CO2 emissions produced in the state.

What About Wood?

As they grow, trees take in CO2 from the air and convert it to wood, releasing oxygen in the process. That’s what biologists call photosynthesis and it happens every day. Most of the wood produced in the tree is found in the stem. When harvested and used to produce wood products like lumber and plywood, the carbon removed from the atmosphere is placed in long-term storage in our houses, offices, and furniture. Then the forests are replanted with fast-growing trees that begin the cycle anew. 

Healthy Markets = Resilient and Growing Forests = More Carbon Captured