Oxfordshire Woodland Group

The storage of carbon in forest duff and sub soil is potentially greater than the carbon locked up in the timber growing on top of same. By direct measurement, the volume of the duff (decaying leaves, needles, twigs, mycellium, etc.) has been calculated to be 6-7 times greater than the volume of the standing timber but is of a lower density.

The importance of maintaining tree cover, for example by avoiding clear felling, is probably more important than has been previously recognised with this approach helping to provide ground shade thereby helping to reduce the evaporation rate of water from the duff and sub soils in a similar fashion to carbon that is locked up in peat bogs..

This approach is not new and was exemplified in the book The Man Who Planted Trees & Grew Happiness by Jean GIONO, first published in 1954 in New York by Conde Naste Publications.