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Wood products such as this dining table store carbon and help mitigate climate change. Photo: ITTO

Carbon is the major chemical constituent of most organic matter and, globally, it is stored in major “sinks”—oceans, soils and forests. Sustainable forest management practices can increase the carbon-storage capacity of forests and thereby help mitigate climate change. Carbon can also be transferred from harvested trees into wood products, where it will be stored for the life of the product—the timber used in houses, for example, might store carbon for many decades. Harvested wood products are an important global carbon sink that is growing.

ITTO assists tropical timber-producing countries to implement sustainable forest management practices that enhance the potential of forests to store carbon; increase the efficiency of timber processing (thereby reducing carbon emissions during manufacture); and promote markets for wood products through legal and sustainable supply chains.

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