What Business Have We in the Woods?

In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?
—Henry David Thoreau

Recently, I found myself wandering the forests of southeastern Tasmania. En route, I pulled the car over at Geeveston to inspect the Forest & Heritage Information Center. Constructed of wood, and filled with information about trees and their commercial uses, one of the myriad facts I picked up was this, "Forests managed for timber production remove more carbon out of the air over time than unmanaged forests locked up in reserves." Because this was written and distributed by people who view trees as things that need to be made into something else -- ie, wood chips, boats, two-by-fours, etc -- I read this with narrowed gaze.
On my return to America, hunched over stacks of dusty volumes, I came across the "Analytical Model of Carbon Storage in the Trees, Soils, and Wood Products of Managed Forests," by Roderick C. Dewar in the journal Tree Physiology.
The fact is, so-called managed forests do have a higher C02 intake than so-called unmanaged forests. Why? The fact is, while a forest is growing, it is a net sink for C02 while mature trees are essentially in equilibrium with the atmosphere.
What Dewar and other researchers seem to be saying, (which the Tasmanian foresters have deployed in a somewhat simplified and self-serving way) is that yes, young, growing trees will suck out more C02. However. It's a far more complex equation than young/managed vs old/unmanaged. Factors such as soil, tree species, what the trees are made into (ie, products with a short or long shelf life?) all play key parts in figuring out the C02 equation.
Facts, those pesky details, and how we twist them to our own ends.
It circles us back around to ideas of who runs the narration of life on Earth -- how proper science with all its tedious reports actually answers complex questions with complex responses. How other sorts with more commercial/exploitative interests maybe shouldn't be allowed to build "information and heritage" centres. I know that sounds incredibly bossy and Che Guevara-ish. But it's true. Leave the histories to those interested in the whole text, (from texere, to weave.)
In some places, Yosemite, for instance, it's good enough to simply be a giant tree. Your life is spared and nurtured. In some places it just isn't. Go figure that one out.
The Australian filmmaker and dancer Lisa Roberts (no relation) told me many of the trees felled in Tasmania become woodchips bound for Japan these days.
Sitting along the side of the road in Geeveston, while a huge logging truck whizzes by, shaking my car, I see the long, soft trunks stacked like -- wood. I imagine their life in these woods. I see them soon-to-be made into what -- packing materials? particle board?
I press my hand to the windshield glass as they roll northward towards the harbor in Hobart and their sea journey. Then I drive deeper into the woods.