A new study finds old-growth forest store and continue to remove far more carbon than previously thought [more] making their preservation (strict protection with no industrial management) a higher priority in carbon trading, tackling global warming and forest conservation. The conventional scientific wisdom has long been that while old-growth forests (older than 100 years old) and primary forests (never been logged or otherwise significantly disturbed) store much carbon and are important carbon sinks [search], that they no longer remove much new carbon, so essentially their removal and release of carbon are in balance.

A new study questions this assumption with great importance for forest conservation and climate change policy adequate to ensure global ecological sustainability for the foreseeable future. The new study found that a 400-year-old forest in southern China is soaking up carbon from the atmosphere considerably faster than expected, most of which is being stored for the long term in the top levels of the soil. The results, which are still preliminary in that they have not been repeated worldwide, nonetheless show the dynamism of carbon in ancient forests, and our continued lack of knowledge regarding basic planetary ecological processes of great importance to our survival and well-being.