The idea that telephone gap is one of our “most valuable forests” is only a claim that a flatlander would make 😂 have you ever been there? It was once a very industrial area and had a road through it before.

In order for a forest to sequester more carbon than it releases through respiration you need there to be disturbances in the forest canopy. Without them you have just a bunch of aging trees that are actually only producing a little bit of wood while most of the tree rots and releases carbon. Old growth has its place and there’s many reasons to preserve old growth but telephone gap is not an area that has a structure remotely similar to an old growth forest, and we need to make some gaps in the canopy. Since we suppress fires here we are left with only windstorms and logging.