President Obama needs only a stroke of his pen to set an example for the world on climate change by establishing federal forested reserves to store carbon in perpetuity, a national environmentalist said Tuesday in Boise.

William Meadows, president of the Wilderness Society, a national group that seeks to preserve wildlands, 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.

The forests of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska could also be put into the reserve, Meadows said. There, many trees are 300 years or older, with some in the Klamath Mountains that grew as seedlings six centuries ago.

"These trees store carbon not only in their massive above-ground structure and leaves, but also in the soil and roots that have spread like the Columbia River delta under each old-growth giant," Meadows said.

Other federal lands, including some of Idaho's 21 million acres of national forests with big, old trees, could be added by a panel of scientists who would determine where preservation is appropriate.

"For a modest infusion of time, effort and money compared to many other far-reaching proposals, and with no impact to private property, we could secure immense carbon storage tanks," Meadows said.

Meadows revealed his proposal Tuesday at a conference of the Frank Church Institute at Boise State University. The institute is chaired by the late U.S. senator's widow, Bethine, who serves on the Wilderness Society's governing board.

Meadows didn't specifically say his proposal would extend prohibitions on logging to additional forested land, but that's what one Idaho timber-industry leader said is likely.

Jim Riley, president of the Intermountain Forest Association, headquartered in Coeur d'Alene, called Meadows' proposal illogical because it would increase the risk of intense wildfires that spew carbon into the air.

"We burn a million acres of forest a year on average," Riley said. "That releases more carbon than all the automobiles in California."

Riley added: "If the U.S. wants to do something credible about climate leadership, the last thing the Obama administration should do is engage in these thinly veiled single-use wilderness agendas."

The Wilderness Society is working with timber companies near Council on a plan to thin and log in the Payette National Forest to reduce the threat of fire. Meadows said the society also has offered to find a donor to invest in a lumber mill in Colorado, where there are none, so that similar so-called restoration management could be done there.

"Wilderness does not mean no logging," Meadows said. "It means no logging in wilderness."

Establishing a National Carbon Trust would demonstrate the U.S. commitment to fighting deforestation in the United States and help it persuade nations with tropical rain forests to protect them, he said. Tropical rain forests also are critical for storing carbon.

"You cannot teach temperance from a bar stool," Meadows said.

Rocky Barker: 377-6484