Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series focused on forests and climate change. In this article, we focus on the role that forests play in storing and producing atmospheric carbon and the opportunities land managers have to impact those roles. Next Monday’s installment will focus on the impact of climate change on forested ecosystems.

In 2013, Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Sprajc hacked his way through a remote jungle on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. The modern-day Indiana Jones was on the trail of a huge discovery: a lost Mayan city obscured by centuries of nearly impenetrable forest.

It wasn’t the first ancient city unearthed from the jungle: Sprajc found two others in the area the following year, and archaeologists have been discovering Mayan, Incan and Aztecan cities deep in Central and South American jungles for a century or more.

More importantly, for archaeology and for the planet, it probably won’t be the last. [Read more…]