Wood can help fight climate change - experts

MANILA, Philippines – Two Filipino forestry experts said yesterday using wood as construction material can help fight climate change.

“Wood — as long as it comes from tree plantations and not from natural forests — is the greenest among the construction materials available in the market,” Florentino Tesoro and Rico Cabangon said in a statement.

“First, wood is renewable and recyclable. Second, it stores carbon, and third, producing lumber and other wood products emits carbon dioxide eight to 13 times less than producing cement or steel,” they said.

Tesoro is a former under-secretary for research and development of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST). He is also a former director of the DOST’s Forest Products Research and Development Institute (FPRDI).

Cabangon, on the other hand, is chief of the FPRDI’s Engineered Products Section.

Tesoro and Cabangon said the excessive amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the culprit behind climate change.

“Trees and wood products fight climate change because they trap carbon in their system. They make up what we may call a huge carbon sink,” they said.

The scientists explained that the growing trees absorb one kilogram of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for every cubic meter of growth.

“The best way to use plantations as carbon sink is to harvest their timber, convert this into products (which will continue to store the carbon), and replant more trees than before. We cannot over-emphasize it: important thing is to plant trees and to use wood products coming from tree plantations only,” they said.

According to Tesoro and Cabangon, several European countries are already promoting the use of wood as a way to reduce climate change.

They said promoting the use of properly sourced wood helps expand forest plantations worldwide and enlarges the carbon sink.