The role of plantations in managing the world's forests in the Anthropocene

Abstract

The public view of tree plantations is somewhat ambiguous. While planting a single tree is generally considered good for the environment, planting a million trees raises concerns in some circles. Although plantations are often used to compensate for bad forestry practices, to willingly simplify otherwise complex forest ecosystems, or as a strategy for allowing the current petroleum‐based economy to continue on its course, we believe plantations have a legitimate place in the sustainable management of forests. Multi‐purpose plantations, designed to meet a wide variety of social, economic, and environmental objectives, can provide key ecosystem services, help preserve the world's remaining primary forests, and sequester an important proportion of the atmospheric carbon released by humans over the past 300 years.

Early performance of planted hybrid larch: effects of mechanical site preparation and planting depth

“…In a context where high-yield forest plantations are expected to respond to an increasing proportion of world demand for wood products (Paquette and Messier 2010), it is imperative that management guidelines be identified that would guarantee the achievement of production objectives. To do so, we must identify and disentangle the mechanisms that are responsible for positive or negative effects of site preparation, surrounding vegetation, and planting depth on seedling performance.…”

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

“…The need to bridge the gap between the theory of adaptation and the practice and realities of forest management is recognised by other authors (Ogden, Innes 2007;Janowiak et al 2011). A particular need is to see how adaptation measures might be implemented in planted forests which are expected to supply an increasing proportion of the world's timber supply in the current century (Paquette, Messier 2010) and whose simple stand structures composed of a few tree species might be expected to make them particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.…”

Spider community responds to litter complexity: insights from a small-scale experiment in an exotic pine stand

“…ensuring some degree of plant diversity to maintain a complex litter layer, might enhance spider aggregations. Allowing native understory establishment within the stand, or using polycultures (Fonseca et al, 2009;Paquette & Messier, 2010) are some examples of strategies that could be used to benefit generalist predators biodiversity and their mediated ecosystem services. The mixing of species stands comprising two or more tree commercial species is a strategy increasingly being considered to achieve ecological and economic goals in Europe (e.g.…”

“…The majority of plantation forests, inclusive mega diverse countries as Brazil, still comprise intensively managed monocultures of exotic trees (e.g. Eucalyptus, Acacia and Pinus; Paquette & Messier, 2010). Empirical evidence has demonstrated that industrial forests may achieve economic purposes while maintaining considerable habitat complexity and conserving a large fraction of the natural forest biodiversity, including both within-and between stand diversity.…”

“…Empirical evidence has demonstrated that industrial forests may achieve economic purposes while maintaining considerable habitat complexity and conserving a large fraction of the natural forest biodiversity, including both within-and between stand diversity. There are several recommendations to ecologically design tree plantations; some few examples are (1) planting trees in lower densities and allowing natural rich understory establishment and development (Fonseca et al, 2009), (2) leaving natural vegetation margins and patches among the rows of planted trees, and (3) using native mixed-species, or polycultures (Paquette & Messier, 2010). As these designs allow greater plant diversity, they potentially increase the leaf-litter layer complexity within the plantations.…”