What is the carbon consequence of not looking after trees?

Now that we have worked out how much carbon can be stored in our trees we can extrapolate further and have calculated that our tree supply every year has the ability to store at least 260,000 tonnes of dry weight carbon over their lifetimes.

Since Barcham Trees was founded about 30 years ago this figure is nearer 6 million tonnes of stored dry weight carbon.

With this in mind it becomes more important to maintain newly planted trees to secure their well-being (spring/summer watering and mulch is critical) and to protect established trees in the landscape. Once a tree is felled, all of its stored carbon will be released back into the atmosphere in fairly short order, unless the timber is preserved for building works or furniture etc.
We should try and develop a culture of protecting trees and the soil structures that support them. Felling trees should be considered as a matter of last resort and reparation should be made by planting others if this last resort comes into play.

It would be great if people view mature trees as 10 tonne carbon storage assets rather than dispose of them without a thought of the consequences. If a perfectly healthy tree is removed for self-interested reasons alone then the landowner will be directly responsible for releasing all that carbon back into our atmosphere which is already way out of balance.

10 tonne Carbon Storage Asset

Written by Mike Glover, Managing Director.