FOREST AND CLIMATIC CHANGE

BIOXID OF CARBON

Fossil combustibles emit carbon bioxid (CO2) when they are burnt so it increases this gas in the atmosphere. This increasing of CO2 contributes to global warming and climatic change.

Trees and forests help to reduce these effects because they take up carbon bioxid from the atmosphere transforming it to carbon thanks to photosynthesis. This carbon is “stored” as vegetation. This process is called “carbon fixation".

Trees and bioxid of carbon

Forests represent one of the main worldwide drains of carbon. Forests store around 289 gigatonnes (Gton) of carbon inside trees and other kinds of vegetation. (Source: FAO – Global Forest Resources Assessments 2010. FRA 2010)

The carbon stored in the forestal biomass, dead wood, fallen leaves and ground is bigger – as on the whole- than the total carbon the atmosphere has. (Source: FAO – Global Forest Resources Assessments 2010. FRA 2010)

At global level, it is estimated that carbon reserves from the forestal biomass dropped 0.5 Gton per year in the period 2000-2010, mainly due to the reduction of the forestal surface. (Source: FAO – Global Forest Resources Assessments 2010. FRA 2010)

THE RAIN One of the most important functions of trees is their competence for the evapo-transpiration of huge volumes of water through their leaves. The water, by the warming sun effect, gets evapored and gets incorporated to the atmosphere as a water steam..

As the vapour goes up to the atmosphere and thanks to a drop in temperature, this vapour gets consdensed in little drops to form the clouds.

The water of clouds falls as sprinkles on the planet and it allows the trees’ growth, the rivers’ supplying and it also benefits other organisms.

The global forest surface is a little bit more than 4,000 million hectares, which is 31% of the global ground surface.

The yearly net forest loss (so, the amount of lost; less the addition of increasing of forest surface) in the period 2000-2010 equals to a similar surface than the surface of Costa Rica. (Source: FAO – Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010. FRA 2010)

FOREST LOSS IN FIGURES

Preservation of forests, avoiding the tree felling, is an important strategy which helps to avoid effects of climate change because of its important role in the storage of CO2 and also its contribution to the regularity of rainfall (thanks to the evapo-transpiration of huge volumes of water by the leaves of tress).

Coolwood, S.L.U. is aware of this situation and we are working to create furniture using recycled wood to avoid cutting down more trees to supply us raw materials for our products.

coolwood@coolwood.cat www.coolwood.cat

The Coolwood, S.L.U. commitment to the enviroment overshoots the use of recycled materials: we promise to use part of the profits from these product sales in reforestation, and planting new trees which won’t be used for commercial usage or to obtain raw matters.

We don’t settle for just giving new life to recycled materials that we re-use, we get excited about creating and increasing the life of our forests

coolwood@coolwood.cat www.coolwood.cat