If you think that sustainable forest management can be a major contributor to mitigating climate change, then you had better not hold your breath. At least not according to the findings in a recent study published in Nature by an international team of scientists led by Vrije University Amsterdam. The team included postdoc Sylvestre Njakou Djomo from the Department of Agroecology at Aarhus University in Denmark.
The scientists found that the additional climate benefits through sustainable forest management will be modest and local rather than global. Even if Europe’s forests are managed in such a way that their carbon sequestration is maximised it will not impact the climate significantly.
Instead, it seems that the forests themselves will need to be adapted to climate change.
- We suggest that the primary role of forest management in Europe in the coming decades is not in protecting the climate but in adapting the forest cover to the climate of the future in order to sustain the provision of wood, as well as ecological, social and cultural services, while avoiding climate feedbacks from fire, wind, pests and drought, say the authors of the article.
Read more at Aarhus University
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