The world's forests, particularly rain forests, are important carbon sinks, both because of their uptake of CO2 through photosynthesis and because of the amount of carbon stored in their woody biomass and the soil. When rain forests are logged and burned, not only do we lose the forests' capacity to take up CO2 from the atmosphere, but also the carbon stored in that biomass and soil is released into the atmosphere through release of roots from the soil and the burning of the woody plant matter.