New analyses now suggest that cutting and replanting a climax forest may actually benefit the environment, provided the wood goes to long-lasting uses such as houses and furniture. Our campers may have a reason to smile. Cellulose, the main ingredient of wood, is a sugar polymer comprising oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon. These constituents are freely available, even though trees are sessile organisms that can't forage as animals can. The tree's genome tells it how to assemble its raw materials into wood.
Sunlight provides the power.
Much power is needed, for a growing tree extracts an amazing volume of material from its environment. A willow, for example, drinks water from the soil, ducts it through roots and trunk, and wicks it into the atmosphere as water vapour. This is not a small-scale operation. On a summer day when its biological processes run quickly, a mature willow may breathe tonnes of water into the air. In flood-prone areas, conservation engineers often plant willows rather than build dams.