The growing demand for responsibly sourced wood products that store carbon can be met with the help of low-carbon market incentives for building, strong certification schemes and educated consumer demand. With these in place, the demand for well-managed forests and plantations on marginal or cleared land will greatly increase. Returning this land to forests will have added climate change and environmental benefits if managed correctly.
This is already happening in other parts of the world. Europe's forests have been expanding at a rate of 0.8 million hectares every year for the past 20 years and are thus absorbing more carbon dioxide, according to The State of Europe's Forests 2011 report.
