Integrating climate change adaptation into forest management

Abstract

Future climate change will affect society's ability to use forest resources. We take account of climate in forest management and this will help us adapt to the effects of climate change on forests. However, society will have to adjust to how forests adapt by changing expectations for the use of forest resources because management can only influence the timing and direction of forest adaptation at selected locations. There will be benefits as well as loses and an important component of adaptation will be balancing values. Adaptation options to respond to impacts on the timber supply in Canada for the next 50 to 100 years are limited mainly to forest protection and wood utilisation because these forests are already in the ground. Adaptation through reforestation will focus on commercial tree species. It is important to start developing adaptation strategies now. These include assessing forest vulnerability to climate change, revising expectations of forest use, determining research and educational needs, development of forest policies to facilitate adaptation, and determining when to implement responses. Government agencies should take the lead in creating an environment to foster adaptation in forestry and in developing the necessary information required to respond.

The Effects of Disease on Optimal Forest Rotation: A Generalisable Analytical Framework

“…This is likely to be because the trees affected by the hazard have no timber value once the event has occurred, and so it is optimal to take action sooner to salvage timber from the higher proportion of trees that are still unaffected. Shortening the rotation length has additional benefits: it reduces the time that the forestwith trees that are diseased and possibly stressed-is exposed to further disturbances such as fire, wind, pests and other pathogens (Spittlehouse and Stewart 2003); and provides an earlier opportunity to change the tree species (Spittlehouse and Stewart 2003) if, for example, it becomes economically unviable to plant the same species again due to the persistence of the pathogen in the landscape. From a practical forestry perspective, a reduction in the rotation length has often been advocated as a management strategy to reduce the effect of pests and pathogens (Chou 1991;Conway et al 1999;Whitehead et al 2001;Wainhouse 2005).…”

Climate change adaptation and sustainable regional development: a case study for the Federal State of Brandenburg, Germany

“…see Spittlehouse and Stewart (2003) or Seppälä (2009) for forestry or Hannah et al (2002) or Lawler (2009) for nature conservation). Adaptive capacity is not equally distributed within societies (Adger et al 2007), and stakeholders such as companies and corporations as well as public households which are potentially impacted by climate change need to develop appropriate adaptation measures.…”

Silvicultural strategies for adapting planted forests to climate change: from theory to practice

“…The challenges posed by climate change require solutions that may be outside the scope of institutional experience and have led to proposals that future forest management should be based upon principles of "adaptive management" involving a cycle of planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation (Lawrence, Gillett 2011). Other authors have proposed a framework of adaptation concepts with supporting actions that should allow managers to manipulate forests to enhance their resistance and resilience to climate change (Spittlehouse, Stewart 2003;Millar et al 2007). Such actions can be seen as part of a risk management strategy linked to the principles of sustainable forest management.…”