Is planting trees a good bet against climate change?

I am a tree hugger.  I always have been.  I grew up roaming the forests of the Rocky Mountains and, while I don't live in the country, I love driving through the forests of post oaks in central Texas.  

It's not hard to understand, then, that deforestation has always been devastating to me, nor should it be a surprise that I am enamored of reforestation projects such as the Hinewai Reserve in New Zealand or the even more ambitious Sahara Forest Project.  

Imagine my chagrin, then, when I came across this article, Planting trees "doesn't make any sense" in the fight against climate change due to permanence concerns, say experts, by Marcus Fairs.  I was prepared to hate it, but as much as it pains me to admit it, Fairs makes some valid points.

Planting trees is commonly promoted as a way to combat climate change and, indeed, many companies are using tree planting to greenwash their products.  This is, arguably, noble but possibly misguided.  At the very least, it may not have the intended impact because it takes a relatively long time for forests to grow.  

Fairs argues that forests have to be in place for 100 years in order to sequester meaningful amounts of carbon.  while I'm not fully convinced that's the case because I simply haven't read enough about the subject.  Nevertheless, if that's true, or even if forests only have to be in place some fraction of that time, it presents a problem.  The people planting the forests aren't likely to be around for the duration.  Simply planting trees, then, isn't enough.  Mechanisms also have to be put in place to ensure their permanence.  Even with those provisions in place some things, like forest fires, can't be predicted or fully mitigated against.

An additional challenge Fairs discusses is that, when planting trees, you have to ensure that the right mix of trees is chosen to recreate balanced ecosystems.  While I've seen quite a few projects that take this into account, I'm not sure that large corporations necessarily consider this in their rush to greenwash their brand.  Monoculture is usually disastrous, whether we're talking about vegetables or trees.

All that said, Fairs is careful to point out that there are a lot of great reasons to plant trees such as protecting biodiversity, preventing soil erosion, and conserving water.  He's definitely not against reforestation.  Rather, his point is that other approaches, such as soil sequestration, might be better long-term solutions to the carbon capture needed to combat climate change.

I still think planting forests is meaningful.  I do agree, though, that we need to consider other approaches as well.