The role of wood harvest from sustainably managed forests in the carbon cycle

Schulze, Ernst Detlef; Bouriaud, Olivier; Irslinger, Roland; Валентини, Р.

doi:10.1186/s13595-022-01127-x

Cited by 15 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…Forest owners tend to favour the harvesting of wood to produce forest products, while environmental groups tend to favour conservation, highlighting short‐term carbon storage effects in standing forests and improvements in biodiversity (Eriksson & Klapwijk, 2019). Continued debate surrounds the share of set‐aside forests required to ensure the protection of wildlife habitats and associated wild species (Dinerstein et al, 2019; Ellis, 2019; Roberts et al, 2020) with some studies identifying important weaknesses in arguments favouring set‐asides (Schulze, 2018; Schulze et al, 2022). Disagreements may also arise due to opposing views concerning short‐ vs. long‐term climate objectives, expectations regarding society's future dependence on carbon‐based energy and materials, and whether these needs can be met in climate‐friendly ways without using biomass (Berndes & Cowie, 2021; Cowie et al, 2021; Rodrigues et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the role of forests and the forest sector for climate change mitigation in Sweden

et al. 2022

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We analyse the short‐ and long‐term consequences for atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations of forest management strategies and forest product uses in Sweden by comparing the modelled consequences of forest resource use vs. increased conservation at different levels of GHG savings from carbon sequestration and product substitution with bioenergy and other forest products. Increased forest set‐asides for conservation resulted in larger GHG reductions only in the short term and only when substitution effects were low. In all other cases, forest use was more beneficial. In all scenarios, annual carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration rates declined in conservation forests as they mature, eventually approaching a steady state. Forest set‐asides are thus associated with increasing opportunity costs corresponding to foregone wood production and associated mitigation losses. Substitution and sequestration rates under all other forest management strategies rise, providing support for sustained harvest and cumulative mitigation gains. The impact of increased fertilization was everywhere beneficial to the climate and surpassed the mitigation potential of the other scenarios. Climate change can have large—positive or negative—influence on outcomes. Despite uncertainties, the results indicate potentially large benefits from forest use for wood production. These benefits, however, are not clearly linked with forestry in UNFCCC reporting, and the European Union's Land Use, Land‐Use Change and Forestry carbon accounting, framework may even prevent their full realization. These reporting and accounting frameworks may further have the consequence of encouraging land set‐asides and reduced forest use at the expense of future biomass production. Further, carbon leakage and resulting biodiversity impacts due to increased use of more GHG‐intensive products, including imported products associated with deforestation and land degradation, are inadequately assessed. Considerable opportunity to better mobilize the climate change mitigation potential of Swedish forests therefore remains.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the role of forests and the forest sector for climate change mitigation in Sweden

et al. 2022

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“…A physiological explanation of this could be that the continuous canopy cover with a moderately high leaf area index (∼ 4 m 2 m −2 ) provide high light interception and net primary production (Bouriaud et al, under review). Regular thinning ensures that the forest has lower biomass than an undisturbed forest, and it is continuously growing, resulting in lower maintenance respiration (Schulze et al, 2022). In a different context, Bourque et al (2007) demonstrated that selection harvesting was the preferred method compared to clearcutting when the goal was to maximize total carbon storage in the forest landscape and wood products generated from harvesting over an 80-year planning horizon.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Forests ecosystems, if and when sustainably managed, offer a dual avenue for greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation through processes that are mutually exclusive, namely sequestration and substitution (Schulze et al, 2022). Reducing harvest yields a positive impact on the forest carbon stock in the short to medium term but would adversely induce a long-term negative impact on the wood-chain value and a counterproductive effect specifically on carbon sequestration as aging trees exhibit decreased growth and carbon use efficiency (Nabuurs et al, 2013; Collalti et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

TimberTracer: A Comprehensive Framework for the Evaluation of Carbon Sequestration by Forest Management and Substitution of Harvested Wood Products.

Boukhris,

Collalti,

Lahssini

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Carbon storage in harvested wood products (HWPs) and the associated substitution effects resulting from their utilization over fossil fuels and energy-intensive materials are pivotal strategies in climate change mitigation. Recognition of this nature-based solution as integral to climate change mitigation targets is notably solidified in many Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted by Parties under the Paris agreement. The need to integrate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals from HWPs in the accounting obligations under the Paris Agreement, along with the necessity to guide decision-making in forest management to optimize the climate change mitigation effect across the entire forest sector, necessitates typical decision-oriented tools known as carbon accounting models. Among these, wood products models (WPMs), that are specifically dedicated to projecting carbon in HWPs and potentially estimating the substitution effect. In this paper, we propose a novel, comprehensive framework called "TimberTracer" designed to explicitly simulating carbon stock in HWPs over temporal scales, substitution effects, and carbon emissions from wood decay and bioenergy. Furthermore, this model can be coupled with forest dynamics models to simulate the long-term effects and interaction between forest management and wood-use scenarios. The model, coupled with the 3D-CMCC-FEM growth model, was applied to the Laricio Pine (Pinus nigra subsp. laricio) situated in the Bonis watershed in southern Italy. The aim was to dynamically assess the impact of three forest management practices (clearcut, selective thinning, and shelterwood) and four wood-use scenarios (business as usual, increased recycling rate, extended average lifespan, and a simultaneous increase in both the recycling rate and the average lifespan), throughout ~140-year planning horizon (1958-2095), on the overall carbon balance. This investigation, covering HWPs stock, C emissions, and the substitution effect, revealed that selective thinning emerged as the optimal forest management scenario. Additionally, the simultaneous increase in both the recycling rate and the half-life time proved to be the optimal wood-use scenario.

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“…le o nazionale, è infatti un elemento fondamentale sia per la mitigazione della crisi climatica (Schulze et al 2022), sia per lo sviluppo delle economie circolari e dell'occupazione nelle zone rurali, che sono dei pilastri fondamentali del Green Deal europeo e della stessa sostenibilità globale (Biber et al 2020, Pilli et al 2022.…”

Section: Considerazioni Conclusiveunclassified

A new paradigm for sustainable forest management: closeR to nature forest management

Motta¹,

Larsen²

2022

Forest@

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A new paradigm for sustainable forest management: closeR to nature forest managementCloser-to-Nature Forest Management is a new concept proposed both in the EU Forest Strategy for 2030 and in the EU Biodiversity strategy for 2030. Closerto-Nature Forest Management aims to improve the conservation values and climate resilience of multifunctional, managed forests in Europe. We present the concept based on a set of seven guiding principles and discuss main problems and opportunities of its application at continental scale and in Italy.

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The role of wood harvest from sustainably managed forests in the carbon cycle

Cited by 15 publications

References 80 publications

On the role of forests and the forest sector for climate change mitigation in Sweden

On the role of forests and the forest sector for climate change mitigation in Sweden

TimberTracer: A Comprehensive Framework for the Evaluation of Carbon Sequestration by Forest Management and Substitution of Harvested Wood Products.

A new paradigm for sustainable forest management: closeR to nature forest management

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