Two observations about advocating for forest protections:
1) it is discouraging to live in Texas, USA, where so many of our federal and state representatives are very right wing & pro-business to the exclusion of environmental and social justice issues. I contacted my city council representative, who has demonstrated a real interest in social justice, and has been a major supporter of improving the large water detention/city park that is very near by. I also contacted the county “judge” (in Texas, this is not a judicial office, but the chief county executive).
2) the importance of forests is clear, both as a social justice issue and supporting a massive amount of the land-based species diversity. Trees do serve as major carbon “sinks” — but so, too, do native grasses and forbs (flowering plants). Unlike trees, which release the bulk of that carbon in the face of fire, prairies and meadows are populated with plants with the greater percentage of their carbon storage underground. In their roots. I am most aware of this being of importance in my area. Houston is at the edge of the Piney Woods ecosystem, located instead on the eastern edge of the great grass prairies that occupied our continent before the introduction of ranching, farming and urbanization.
Both forests and native prairies need protection and restoration.