Strategic Forest Reserves can protect biodiversity in the western United States and mitigate climate change

Law, B. E.; Berner, L. T.; Buotte, Polly C.; Mildrexler, David J.; Ripple, William J.

doi:10.1038/s43247-021-00326-0

Cited by 27 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 85 publications

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“…Forestation can regulate the impacts of climate change and human activity through the carbon sink [89][90][91]. According to land-use change, the forestlands in LHRB have increased from 11,477.4 km 2 to 11,815.7 km 2 during the past 20 years, which illustrates the local government's efforts.…”

Section: Response Of Eq To Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Land Use and Climate Change Altered the Ecological Quality in the Luanhe River Basin

Zhang

Song

Fan

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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Monitoring and assessing ecological quality (EQ) can help to understand the status and dynamics of the local ecosystem. Moreover, land use and climate change increase uncertainty in the ecosystem. The Luanhe River Basin (LHRB) is critical to the ecological security of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region. To support ecosystem protection in the LHRB, we evaluated the EQ from 2001 to 2020 based on the Remote Sensing Ecological Index (RSEI) with the Google Earth Engine (GEE). Then, we introduced the coefficient of variation, Theil–Sen analysis, and Mann–Kendall test to quantify the variation and trend of the EQ. The results showed that the EQ in LHRB was relatively good, with 61.08% of the basin rated as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’. The spatial distribution of EQ was low in the north and high in the middle, with strong improvement in the north and serious degradation in the south. The average EQ ranged from 0.58 to 0.64, showing a significant increasing trend. Furthermore, we found that the expansion of construction land has caused degradation of the EQ, whereas climate change likely improved the EQ in the upper and middle reaches of the LHRB. The results could help in understanding the state and trend of the eco-environment in the LHRB and support decision-making in land-use management and climate change.

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Section: Response Of Eq To Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Land Use and Climate Change Altered the Ecological Quality in the Luanhe River Basin

Zhang

Song

Fan

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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“…Typically, MOG that have experienced severe natural disturbance are logged, including within administrative reserves (such as late-successional reserves under the Northwest Forest Plan in the Pacific Northwest) and even within IRAs. However, we recommend protections extend through post-disturbance successional stages to allow forests to recover carbon stocks (proforestation, Moomaw et al, 2019) and because most carbon in severe disturbances simply transfers from live to dead pools and soils (Law et al, 2021).…”

Section: Conservation Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Primary and old-growth forests generally have received increased attention internationally as natural climate solutions (DellaSala et al, 2020;IUCN, 2020;Law et al, 2021Law et al, ), 10.3389/ffgc.2022 including from policy makers 1 (e.g., March 22, 2022) and conservation non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the United States 2 ; 3 (accessed May 15, 2022). Article 5.1 of the Paris Climate Agreement calls on governments to protect and enhance "carbon sinks and reservoirs, " while Article 21 of the UNFCCC COP26 Glasgow Climate Pact emphasizes "the importance of protecting, conserving and restoring nature and ecosystems, including forests.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Large-scale conservation proposals for all land and waters have increasingly relied on 30 percent (i.e., 30% protected by 2030 or 30 × 30; Dinerstein et al, 2019;Carroll and Noss, 2021;Carroll and Ray, 2021;Law et al, 2021Law et al, , 2022One Earth Global Safety Net 4 ; accessed May 28, 2022) and 50 percent (Half Earth) protection targets that involve triage approaches (Noss et al, 2012;Wilson, 2016). Large-scale target setting also has policy relevance, as exemplified by President Joe Biden's January 2021 executive order directing federal agencies to develop 30 × 30 targets for all lands and waters in the United States (White House, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mature and old-growth forests contribute to large-scale conservation targets in the conterminous United States

DellaSala¹,

Mackey²,

Norman³

et al. 2022

Front. For. Glob. Change

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Mature and old-growth forests (MOG) of the conterminous United States collectively support exceptional levels of biodiversity but have declined substantially from logging and development. National-scale proposals to protect 30 and 50% of all lands and waters are useful in assessing MOG conservation targets given the precarious status of these forests. We present the first coast to coast spatially explicit MOG assessment based on three structural development measures—canopy height, canopy cover, and above-ground living biomass to assess relative maturity. MOG were displayed by major forest types (n = 22), landownerships (federal, state, private, and tribal), and Gap Analysis Project (GAP) management status overlaid on the NatureServe’s Red-listed Ecosystems and species, above-ground living biomass, and drinking water source areas. MOG total ∼67.2 M ha (35.9%) of all forest structural classes and were scattered across 8 regions with most in western regions. All federal lands combined represented the greatest (35%) concentrations of MOG, ∼92% of which is on national forest lands with ∼9% on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and ∼3% on national park lands (totals do not sum to 100% due to minor mapping errors in the datasets). MOG on national forest lands supported the highest concentration of conservation values. However, national forests and BLM lands did not meet lower bound (30%) targets with only ∼24% of MOG in GAP1,2 (5.9 M ha) protection status. The vast majority (76%, 20.8 M ha) of MOG on federal lands that store 10.64 Gt CO2 (e) are vulnerable to logging (GAP3). If federal MOG are logged over a decade, and half their carbon stock emitted, there would be an estimated 0.5 ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 by 2030, which is equivalent to ∼9% of United States total annual emissions. We recommend upper bound (100%) protection of federal MOG, including elevating the conservation status of Inventoried Roadless Areas. This would avoid substantial CO2 emissions while allowing ongoing carbon sequestration to act as natural climate solutions to aid compliance with the Paris Climate Agreement and presidential executive orders on MOG and 30% of all lands and waters in protection by 2030. On non-federal lands, which have fewer MOG, regulatory improvements and conservation incentives are needed.

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“…For instance, the spatial correlation between carbon storage and species richness can be limited at scales relevant to conservation planning (Di Marco et al, 2018), and protecting some imperiled species may be incompatible with maximizing carbon storage (Littlefield & D'Amato, 2022). These trade‐offs may lead to poor allocation of resources in some contexts if prioritizing carbon storage is presumed to universally maximize biodiversity benefit (Beaudrot et al, 2016; Phelps et al, 2012; Seddon et al, 2020), though in other contexts (e.g., where there is strong concordance between biodiversity and carbon), “win–wins” may be achievable (Brandt et al, 2014; Law et al, 2021; Lecina‐Diaz et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Achieving conservation targets by jointly addressing climate change and biodiversity loss

et al. 2023

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Unprecedented rates of climate change and biodiversity loss have galvanized efforts to expand protected areas (PAs) globally. However, limited spatial overlap between the most important landscapes for mitigating climate change and those with the highest value for biodiversity may impede efforts to simultaneously address both issues through new protections. At the same time, there is a need to understand how lands with high conservation value align with existing patterns of land management, both public and private, which will inform strategies for developing new conservation areas. To address these challenges, we developed three composite indices to identify the highest conservation value lands across the conterminous United States (CONUS) and Alaska, drawing on a suite of key ecological and environmental indicators. Two indices characterize the most important conservation lands for addressing climate change (based on climate accessibility, climate stability, and total carbon storage) and biodiversity (based on species richness, ecological integrity, and ecological connectivity), while a third, combined index simultaneously addresses both conservation challenges. We found that existing PAs in the United States have relatively low overlap with the highest conservation value lands, regardless of the index used (10%-13% in CONUS, 27%-34% in Alaska), suggesting limited effectiveness of current protections but substantial opportunity for expanding conservation into high-value, unprotected areas. In unprotected landscapes, the highest value lands for addressing climate change generally diverged from those identified as most important for protecting biodiversity (22%-38% overlap, depending on index and geography). Our combined index reconciled these spatial trade-offs through high overlap with both the climate and biodiversity indices (66%-72%). Of the unprotected high conservation value lands identified by each of our three indices, we found ≥70% are privately managed in CONUS, while 16%-27% are privately managed in Alaska, underscoring the need to engage private landowners and land trusts in efforts

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Strategic Forest Reserves can protect biodiversity in the western United States and mitigate climate change

Cited by 27 publications

References 85 publications

Land Use and Climate Change Altered the Ecological Quality in the Luanhe River Basin

Land Use and Climate Change Altered the Ecological Quality in the Luanhe River Basin

Mature and old-growth forests contribute to large-scale conservation targets in the conterminous United States

Achieving conservation targets by jointly addressing climate change and biodiversity loss

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