← Back to context

Comment by echelon_musk

5 hours ago

While technically correct, I think your comment is disingenuous and distracts from the issue.

You're right that the forests themselves are not emitting carbon. However, human deforestation is causing the sequestered carbon in the trees to be removed from the forest and that is also reducing the forest's ability to absorb carbon.

TFA

> their forests are now dying faster than they are regrowing

> ...driven by deforestation and forest degradation.

Due largely to deforestation caused by humans.

A search for "logging in congos protected forest" will reveal numerous articles on this:

> Despite the ban on new industrial logging, the DRC has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, losing 490,000 hectares (1.2m acres) of primary rainforest in 2020, according to Global Forest Watch.

There is a top level comment taking the article's wording as meaning the trees have evolved to emit carbon because of the confusing wording. I think it's a very helpful comment to clarify what the article is trying to say, not a distraction from it.