Lumber has value because people are willing to pay money to get it. This is because lumber can be used to build useful things like houses and furniture. To make a living tree valuable, you would have to find a way to convince someone to pay money to keep it that way. Donations by philanthropists might provide some, but to get enough money, you would need to make it profitable. Lumber fetches a very good profit. You would have to come up with something profitable enough to compete with it.

Of course, some trees do have value alive if they produce a valuable product, such as fruit or nuts or sap(like syrup or rubber). However, most trees don't produce anything sellable other than wood. Maybe the most valuable product from most trees is oxygen, but we all get that for free, and I don't think charging people for breathing would go over well.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not against your idea at all. If you can come up with a way to get people to pay money to keep trees alive, I think that would be great. I just don't know how you could do it.

Many people are trying to live 'carbon neutral' today, and the only way they can do their penance for using electricity is to pay money to someone for 'carbon offsets.' It's really a multi-million (billion?) dollar business now.

Under the Kyoto protocall, one of the approved methods of 'sequestration' is to pay to maintain a 'carbon sink', that is, yes, people pay to keep a forest from being chopped down. So gianalberto, your idea is worth millions, but it's already being done on large scales for whole forests.

The whole carbon-neutral things sounds silly to me--if you cut a tree, you can use the wood and it'll grow again. But I don't decide the economics of global carbon policy and nobody is offering me money to save the cedar trees in my pasture. I'm of the opinion that the hay that will grow yearly where I cut cedar trees will probably remove more pounds of CO2 than if the area was covered by trees for a long period. Mature trees pretty much stop growing at some point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_sink

I think that the way to impose this is not that you make money for having the tree, but you are charged for removing it, even a tax. The carbon tax is fairly commonly discussed, and supported to some degree, along the same lines, why not an environmental tax for removing natural plants, it would be a somewhat complicated system, but i think it could work, some of the money could even come back to you for planting new trees. Make you pay a large amount for removing a large tree, exceptions for trees which endanger property, etc. and for logging companies, since we do need wood, have exceptions for sanctioned pieces of land, or they have to pay the large amount, but get most of it back when they re-plant the forest, you could even adjust the rate for selective cutting, to help discourage clearcutting forests.

drew, part of my point of view is that when you remove a tree, the carbon is still 'sequestered' unless you burn it or let if rot. If you use lumber, it will stay sequestered for as long as that piece of furniture, or house or baseball-bat exists. So using lumber is good for the environment because new trees can't grow to tie-up more carbon unless you remove the old trees. This seems really obvious to me, but I've never heard it from an environmentalist.

This may work if you go species by tree species… I live among redwoods which are stunningly beautiful but very sought after for rot and insect resistant applications such as fences, decks and outdoor furniture. The only real way to preserve old or almost old growth redwoods is to reduce the value of FELLED old growth lumber - deadfalls (pretty common actually) should become the only source of older growth timber.

This "living more valuable than dead" approach has been used before - in Africa to stop elephant poaching for ivory. That took a worldwide CITES ban on ivory which cost the Kruger National Park in South Africa MILLIONS of dollars as they had to burn the ivory from their necessary, legal and as-humane-as-possible culling program. Can we ban the use of redwood? Good luck!

Hi, I ws thinking a bit more about this. With lumber, the tree has only one value, ie it is lumber. What other values does it have and what products could be created and in what markets could they be sold? lets brainstorm this; Value1: Lumber - theres all sorts of markets for thatValue2: Oxygen Production - a product for insurance companies to sell to funds govts etc?Value3: Fresh Water reserves (not from tapping a hole in the tree, but lets remember that trees are part of the water cycle, and they evotranspirate, sending water into the atmosphere which then hopefully rains down etc) - As fresh wter reserves fall and all sorts of trouble ensues it may be a useful product for insurance companies?Value4: Wildlife and Bio diversity - I can really think of a market for that! suggestions please!Value5: Tourism

If anybody has any ideas please write them up!