Wilderness Society President Bill Meadows proposal for National Climate Trusts likely won’t end up locking away from the timber industry millions of new acres.

The reality nationwide is that the United States gets only 2 percent of our fiber from public lands. The rest comes from private forests that are managed for fiber and timber production.

Just like President Bill Clinton’s 2001 roadless rule, Meadow’s idea for a series of forest reserves to preserve the oldest trees now storing carbon, locks in the status quo. It is viewed as a challenge in western states where the timber industry still depends on public lands but when the details are worked out I suspect the debates will come down to a few hundred thousand acres, except in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.

There the congressional delegation and the local industry still hopes to get its hands on old growth forests that have been written off in most of the lower 48 states.

Meadows called on Obama to set up a National Forest Trust, a series of federal reserves chosen on the basis of their carbon density, to store the substance that contributes to global warming when released. Among the forests that could be protected are the 9 million acres of old growth in Oregon, Washington and California already protected by former President Bill Clinton under the Northwest Forest Plan.

“These three forests are only a part of what some people have called the Ft. Knox of carbon sequestration in the United States: the moist forest types of the Pacific Northwest,” Meadows said.

Both sides of the debates recognize the values forests play in storing and capturing carbon. The American Forest & Paper Association says on its web site forests and forest products offset 10 percent of U.S. carbon emissions.

“People on all sides of the issue recognize the important contributions that managed forests make to greenhouse gas reductions and the forest products industry is a significant problem solver when it comes to climate change,” said Scott Milburn, a spokesman for the American Forest & Paper Association. “Not only do we manage the forests that absorb carbon but forest products store carbon over their lifetime so the manufacturer of forest products encourages the renewal and management of our forests so they can absorb more carbon.”

The House cap and trade climate bill includes a provision so that private forest owners can be paid for managing their forests to store carbon. Meadows plan only looks to public lands and he goes beyond his reserves plan in his recommendation to President Obama.

After the President signs his executive order he would establish an expert science committee to guide the creation of the new National Climate Trust. That panel would develop specific recommendations on how to implement the order, add to the Trust, and manage all of the federal public lands to achieve the larger goal of storing carbon.

Then the secretaries of the federal agencies would be directed to designate areas as part of the National Climate Trust within a year after the expert science panel has made its recommendations.

Meadows said the agencies should also establish appropriate safeguards to conserve fish, wildlife and ecological processes; preserve water flows and watersheds; and help protect, restore and conserve natural resources to enable them to become more resilient to, adapt to, and withstand the impacts of climate change. That doesn’t mean no management nor wilderness management.

“If we do this right, it will be a win-win-win situation,” Meadows told the Boise State University audience.