![]() So do a lot of other species as a result.” Here, all this lichen is telling us we’re in a good air shed. “Lichens are the canary in the coal mine for clean air. “Smell that?” The smell is crisp and refreshing, a lush green scent in late July on the Olympic Peninsula. Walking along Barnes Creek amid towering old-growth hemlock, red cedar and Douglas fir, Dominick DellaSala points to the lichen, hanging thick like Spanish moss from the limbs shading our path. says the world must aggressively reduce carbon emissions now, as scientists press the Biden administration to create a national Strategic Carbon Reserve to protect a further 20 million hectares (50 million acres) of mature forested federal lands from logging to help meet U.S. New protections are promised, but old-growth logging continues apace.In the U.S., protection outside Olympic National Park is scant. But elsewhere in the province, 97% of all tall, old-growth forest has been felled for timber and wood pellets. British Columbia did the unexpected in 2016 by establishing the Great Bear Rainforest Agreement, protecting 6.4 million hectares (15.8 million acres) of coastal old-growth forest. ![]() And there’s not much left here on the Olympic Peninsula or just north of us in British Columbia.” “The diversity of life that is all around us is incredibly rare,” a forest ecologist tells Mongabay on a hike in Olympic National Park.These are some of the most biodiverse, carbon-dense forests outside the tropics, thus crucial to carbon sequestration. Coastal temperate rainforests are among the rarest ecosystems on Earth, with more than a third of their total remaining global area located in a narrow band in the U.S.
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