Climate-Smart Forestry: Promise and risks for forests, society, and climate

Abstract

Climate change is presenting a global challenge to society and ecosystems. This is changing long-standing methods to determine the values of forests to include their role in climate mitigation and adaptation, alongside traditional forest products and services. Forests have become increasingly important in climate change dialogues, beyond international climate negotiations, because of their framing as a Natural Climate Solution (NCS) or Nature-Based Solution (NBS). In turn, the term “Climate-Smart Forestry” (CSF) has recently entered the vernacular in myriad disciplines and decision-making circles espousing the linkage between forests and climate. This new emphasis on climate change in forestry has a wide range of interpretations and applications. This review finds that CSF remains loosely defined and inconsistently applied. Adding further confusion, it remains unclear how existing guidance on sustainable forest management (SFM) is relevant or might be enhanced to include CSF principles, including those that strive for demonstrable carbon benefits in terms of sequestration and storage. To contribute to a useful and shared understanding of CSF, this paper (1) assesses current definitions and framing of CSF, (2) explores CSF gaps and potential risks, (3) presents a new definition of CSF to expand and clarify CSF, and (4) explores sources of CSF evidence.

Quantifying Forest Cover Loss during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Charcoal Production Basin of Lubumbashi (DR Congo) through Remote Sensing and Landscape Analysis

“…Forest ecosystems play a pivotal and multifaceted role on a global scale. Their primary contribution to climate regulation stems from their ability to sequester carbon dioxide (CO2) [1], serving as critical carbon sinks and significantly mitigating greenhouse gas emissions [2]. Concurrently, forests uphold the stability of hydrological cycles by regulating water flow dynamics.…”

“…Moreover, they harbor unparalleled biodiversity, safeguarding the planetʹs genetic diversity [3]. Additionally, forests provide indispensable resources such as timber, firewood, and traditional medicines, thereby contributing to the daily welfare of populations [2,4,5]. Notably, an estimated 880 million people worldwide, particularly women, rely on firewood collection or charcoal production, underscoring forestsʹ indispensable role in human livelihoods [6,7].…”

Modeling climate-smart forest management and wood use for climate mitigation potential in Maryland and Pennsylvania

“…To successfully apply carbon science to meet legislative goals at broad scales, effective climate change mitigation strategies balance the maintenance or optimization of both carbon storage and sequestration while acknowledging trade-offs with ecological complexity and health (Bradford and D' Amato, 2012;Watson et al, 2018;Rogers et al, 2022). Climate-Smart Forestry (CSF) is a targeted, long-term strategy to enhance the climate benefits from forests and the forest products sector while providing sustainable resources for a growing human population (Nabuurs et al, 2018;Bowditch et al, 2020;Cooper and MacFarlane, 2023). CSF emphasizes, in part, the management of forests to continuously deliver a sustainable wood supply in both the short-and long-term without impeding the integrity and function of the forest (Bowditch et al, 2020) which can be achieved through optimizing both the age-structure and diameter distribution of forests at the landscape level (Bergeron et al, 2017) and other adaptive practices (Bowditch et al, 2020).…”