BANGOR DAILY NEWS • November 15, 2020
Maine’s forests sequester more than 60 percent of our annual carbon emissions. When a forest is cleared for agricultural land or development, that carbon goes back up into the atmosphere, said Mike Parisio, forest entomologist with the Maine State Forest Service. Much of that carbon is stored in the soil of a forest. When disturbed, the soil loses carbon. ”A high priority in Maine is to retain [forestland],” Parisio said. “Let’s not mess up a good thing. We’re 89 percent forested … We lose about 10,000 acres [of forestland] a year to conversion,” mostly to construction of buildings — not through conversion to farmland.