The Pacific Northwest holds a special distinction in the United States for its clusters of biodiverse forests and vast wildernesses. Those natural wonders just may serve as a key component when it comes to fighting climate change, according to a study released in Nature on Tuesday. Oregon scientists called for the establishment of a “strategic forest reserves” plan meant to protect places like the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains, where trees have been storing carbon for centuries. Researchers found that protecting forests from damaging activities like logging provides a double-whammy of sorts. Logging emissions are up to seven times worse than that of wildfires, so banning the practice altogether automatically drives down the release of greenhouse gasses. And leaving trees in pristine condition allows for forests to store more carbon from the atmosphere.

Many older forests are able to store more carbon in their soil, plants, and trees than young forests. They also provide the perfect ecosystem for threatened animals like gray wolves and Canadian lynx. Researchers believe an indefinite ban on logging, mining, and grazing may be the key to preserving these lands. “The key to this is that it needs to be permanent.” Oregon State University Professor Emeritus Beverly Law told Oregon Public Radio. “That means you’re going to keep the carbon there. You’re not going to cut the forest. The high carbon density forests are mature and older forest.”

Much of the forests critical to this mission are on federal land, which means the federal government must take action. Scientists suggested federal and tribal governments and private landowners work together to enact protective measures. Were these lands to be protected, they would also help the U.S. meet its goal of protecting 30% of its land and water by 2030. According to Protected Planet, which maps such areas around the world, the U.S. has currently protected about 13% of its land and 19% of its water. A majority of that protected area falls under federal and state jurisdiction. Just 2.3% of that is made up of private parcels while Indigenous leaders control less than one 1% of protected land and water. This points to the inequality and systemic disenfranchisement of Native Americans—something that could be remedied to a certain extent by rightfully returning more land to Indigenous groups.

Researchers came up with a ranking system to protect forests with the most biodiversity and carbon priority in the Pacific Northwest.

Time and time again, it’s been proven that Indigenous community leadership and involvement is crucial in the fight against climate change. Nearly half of the land under tribal government jurisdiction in Arizona, for example, is considered a “high preservation priority” by researchers. Indigenous groups could lead the way in Arizona and beyond when it comes to ethical stewardship.

The Indigenous community in Arizona has also done an incredible job challenging harmful developments proposed in areas even outside of their jurisdiction. As the Arizona Republic notes, many of the laws that took Native Americans away from sacred lands were meant to demonize and discriminate against them. The fact that tribes like the Havasupai must fight dangerous, carcinogenic developments like a proposed uranium mine points to the federal and state government’s shortcomings and highlights the generations-long inequity created by colonizers that continues to wreak havoc in the United States and beyond to this day. The study in Nature primarily asks the government to stop overlooking its own land but I know I’d personally want the powers that be to go a step further and truly commit to the term “climate justice” that is so cavalierly thrown around as a buzzword by the current administration. This is land justice. And it’s the only way forward if we want to have a fighting chance against climate change.

“If you look at it from a land justice perspective, we need to support a strengthening and healing of that relationship,” Erin Myers Madeira, director of the Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities program for the Nature Conservancy, told Yale Environment in a recent article on the subject. “If you look at it practically, Indigenous people are the original stewards of all the lands and waters in North America, and there’s an extensive knowledge and management practices that date back millennia.”