Old, Primeval Forests May Be a Powerful Tool to Fight Climate Change

I meet Bob in a gravel parking lot at the end of a quiet residential road. We are at the Ice Glen trailhead, half a mile from a Mobil station, and we are going to show you one of New England's rare pockets of old-growth forest.
For most of the 20th century, the ancient forests of New England had fallen to the ax and saw. How could such old trees survive the 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 The colonial frontier had logging operations stretching from Maine to the Carolinas at the end of the 17th century. We are at Ice Glen on a hot, humid August day because the loggers and settlers missed a few spots over 300 years.
To enter a forest with Bob is to submit to a narration of the natural world, defined as much by its tangents as its destinations. The enthusiasm for sharing his experience of the woods with newcomers like me has powered Leverett at 80. While growing up in the Southern Appalachians, Leverett served in the Air Force for 12 years, with stops in the Dakotas, Taiwan, and the Pentagon. He retired from his job as an engineering head of a management consulting firm and software developer in New England in 2007, but he still comes across as a preacher ready to preach at a moment. Invariably, the topic of these sermons is the importance of old-growth forest, not only for its serene effect on the human soul or for its biodiversity, but for its vital role in mitigating climate change.

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Bob and Monica Jakuc are married.

As we make our way up the trail, the old-growth Evangelist, as he is often called, explains that though individual trees in New England have famously escaped the ax, the Endicott pear tree in Danvers, Massachusetts, comes to mind. These are forests that are sustained by multiple sets of biological processes. The term old growth came into use in the 1970s to describe multispecies forests that had been left alone for at least 150 years.

Ice Glen is named for the deposits of ice that lived in its deep, rocky crevasses well into the summer months. As the sun sets over sugar maples, hundreds of years old hollisters loom over them as the sun sets through a cascade of microclimates. White pines reach skyward past doomed ash trees and bent-limbed black Birch, while striped maples diffuse a green across the forest floor through leaves the size of lily pads, and yellow Birch coil its roots around lichen-covered rock. There are maidenhair, blue cohosh and sassafras in the forest floor. The kind of hardwood forests that once thrived in the Appalachians from Maine to North Carolina are an encounter with deep time.
In the early 1980s, he noticed a hidden patch of forest on his weekend hikes in the New England forests. The idea that the New England sites were remnant forests was 888-276-5932 888-276-5932 888-276-5932 888-276-5932 888-276-5932s.

The article is from the January/February issue of the magazine.

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The New England forest was cleared of old growth by the 20th century. Around 1900, this is Rowe, Massachusetts. The Rowe Historical Society exists.

A lot of people were skeptical that there was any old growth in Massachusetts. Nobody in New England could see old growth.
In the Spring 1988 edition of the magazine the Woodland Steward, Leverett wrote an article about discovering old-growth forest in Massachusetts. The reaction among forest ecologists was unexpected. By Jove, my phone started ringing. People called and said, "Are you really finding old growth in the Berkshires?"
One of the calls was from a Harvard researcher who asked if he could tag along to look at some of the trees. There is a hike near the New York-Massachusetts border, not far from the town ofSheffield, Massachusetts. It was old growth and accessible to what would have been original lumbering operations. The increment borer, a specialized tool for making field estimates on the age of a tree based on its rings, was brought along by Zebryk. I pointed to a tree and said that if you core it, it will be pretty old. I thought to myself, maybe 300, 330 years old.

He has told this story many times, because he is good with yarn. He did a field count and it came out to 330 years, but he didn't buy that at all. My stock went through the roof.
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The old-growth Evangelist takes the measure of a tree. He wrote a book about this practice. David Degner is a person.

When you have a lead on a tree, you call the tree's owner.

The height of American tree species, for generations, had been mismeasured by loggers and academics, and just a few years after the Woodland Steward article, he came to another startling realization: The height of American tree species, for generations, had been mismeasured by loggers and academics. The ability of Bob to notice basic facts about the forest that others had overlooked would fundamentally change our understanding of old forests.

Climate scientists stress the importance of afforestation or planting new forests if the goal is to reduce global warming. William Moomaw, a climate scientist, created the term proforestation to describe the preservation of older existing forests. Moomaw was a lead author of five major reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won the peace prize in 2007. The strategies have a role to play. The last few years have shown how much more valuable proforestation is than we thought. Bob was able to show that Eastern white pines accumulate 75 percent of their total carbon after 50 years of age, which is a pretty important finding. New forests won't do it.
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A method for estimating a tree's height within five inches was developed by Leverett. David Degner is a person.

One of his biggest insights was on a summer day in 1990 or 1991. He was measuring a large sugar maple in the Massachusetts Mohawk Trail State Forest. He was told that he had discovered the tallest sugar maple in history. He had seen big sugar maples in his life, but this was not the case.

Jack Sobon, a specialist in timber-frame construction, was brought along by Leverett to measure the tree. The better to account for the tree's lean, they cross-triangulated their positions. The fact that trees grow crooked is something that no one had been allowing for. The standard way to field-measure a tree was simple, and had been used for decades. The tree is being treated like a telephone pole in a parking lot, with the top vertically over the base. The same method had led to widespread mismeasurement of tree species.

We are standing over the remains of the sugar maple that was felled 30 years ago. The top wasn't over the base, so I was off by 30 feet.
The sine method is a better way to estimate a tree's height and is accurate to within five inches. He has developed ways to approximate trunk, limb and crown volume. The larger estimates of how much space old trees occupy have contributed to his discoveries about their carbon-capture abilities. A recent study co-authored with Moomaw and Susan Masino, a professor of applied science at Trinity College in Connecticut, found that individual Eastern white pines capture more carbon between 100 and 150 years of age than they do in their first 50 years. The assumption that younger, faster-growing forests sequester more carbon than older forests is challenged by a study. The research shows that proforestation is the most effective way to mitigate climate change. If we left the world's existing forests alone, they would have captured enough carbon to offset years' worth of global fossil-fuel emissions.

Walking through the woods is an experience that lasts a long time.

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There are two root systems that support trunks. David Degner is a person.

It turns out that really, really old trees can keep putting on a lot of carbon at older ages than we thought possible. White pine, hemlock, and sugar maple are some of the species that Bob was instrumental in establishing.

The work of Leverett has made him a legend among big-tree hunters, who spend their weekends in search of the tallest, oldest trees east of the Mississippi. Big-tree hunters are like British trainspotters in that they meticulously measure and record data for inclusion in the open database maintained by the Native Tree Society. The goal is to find the biggest tree of the species. One thing that everyone seems to agree on is that when you have a lead on the biggest or oldest tree, you should always call Leverett, who is always willing to travel to larger trees.
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A ravine or other steep terrain is a good place to find old growth. David Degner is a person.

The professional forest community can feel like a tangle of competing interests, from forest managers to ecology PhDs, as a result of the ready acceptance by this community of tree-lovers. It was going to take more than a single visit to some 300-year-old hemlocks to convince them of old growth in the Northeast. That was going to be changed by Leverett. In the early 1990s, he wrote a series of articles for the quarterly journal Wild Earth to help spread his ideas about old growth among the grassroots environmentalist community. The Ancient Eastern Forest conference series brought forest professionals together with ecologists from some of the most prestigious academic departments in the country. The Sierra Club Guide to the Ancient Forests of the Northeast was co-authored by him, as well as Eastern Old-Growth Forests:Prospect for Rediscovery and Recovery.
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An Eastern newt is in a ravine. David Degner is a person.

Since then, he has led thousands of people on tours of old-growth forest under the auspices of groups like the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the Sierra Club and the Hitchcock Center for the Environment, and published scores of essays and articles. A workshop on tree measurement will be held at Harvard Forest in central Massachusetts in May. Don Bertolette, a veteran of the U.S. Forest Service, co-authored the book on how to measure a tree.

The preservation of old growth in his adopted home state of Massachusetts has been impacted by the efforts of Leverett. The Massachusetts Forest Trust, the Native Tree Society, the Forest Stewards Guild, and Friends of Mohawk Trail State Forest are all part of a loose coalition of groups dedicated to the identification and preservation of old-growth forest. The message that continues to appeal to the scientist and spiritualist alike is that we have a duty to protect the old-growth forest for both its beauty and its importance to the planet.

After paying our respects to the decaying remains of the mismeasured sugar maple, we tack gingerly downward through a boulder field, from fairytale old growth into a transitional forest. A light rain begins to fall as we find ourselves in a wide meadow under a low sky. A couple in bright jackets are approaching along a trail as they move through a waist-high variety of prairie grass. There are very few people in the park today, and the woman asks if we are familiar with the area. With typical good humor, he said, "Intimately, I would say."
There is a simple message at the center of the quest.

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The variety of organisms they support is one benefit of old-growth forests. David Degner is a person.

She asks if he knows the location of the Trees of Peace, a grove of the tallest Eastern white pines in New England, named after the belief that the white pine is a symbol of peace. Jani A. Leverett, his first wife, was a Cherokee-Choctaw and died in 2003 The Jake Swamp pine is the tallest tree in New England at 175 feet.

The woman's eyes widen above her mask until she asks, "Are you Robert Leverett?"

Her eyes filled with tears as she said yes.

Susan and her partner have been camping. The couple, from Boston, have already paid their respects to other parts of the woods, but haven't been able to find the Trees of Peace. We are going back into the forest.

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When he discovered the patches of forest that looked like his childhood woods, he recognized old growth in the Northeast. David Degner is a person.

Leverett is reticent about the extent of his influence. He seems to be most interested in how the forest affects individual people. There is a spiritual quality to being out here: You walk silently through these woods, and there is a spirit that comes out. My first wife told Bob that he was supposed to open the door for people in the forest. They will find out later.

We were led to the center of the Trees of Peace. Susan and Kamal walked among the tall pines, each pausing to place a hand on a trunk. The storm that was threatening all day never came. The main trail leads to the park entrance. Email addresses and invitations are extended to a couple. It feels like making plans in a church parking lot after a moving service.

Over the decades, he has introduced thousands of people to the old-growth forest. Ecologists, activists, builders, backpackers, painters and poets, no matter who he is with, he wants to understand their perspective, wants to know what they are seeing in the woods. It is as if he is accumulating a larger map of our relationship to the natural world.

He says that other people are more eloquent in how they describe the impact of the woodland. I just feel it.
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