The carbon cycle in the old-growth forests

According to a recent paper published in Nature (Luyssaert et al. 2008) the old-growth forests remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and should be considered an important carbon sink at the planetary level. This finding is discussed both in relation to the traditional hypothesis that considered the old-growth forests "neutral" in the carbon balance, and in relation to the present and future importance of this sink at the local and at the planetary level.