Comment by thinkcontext

I think this loses the forest for the trees. That is, a single tree rotting isn't what matters its how long the ecosystem the tree is part of lasts. Consider a square kilometer of denuded land turned back into a forest. You can think of the forest as a temporary storage for carbon, its stored in the trees, soil, animals, insects, etc in that square kilometer. Individual trees may die but on average if the forest remains in good health there will be a number of tons of carbon kept out of the atmosphere.