Introduction
Understanding the causes and impacts of climate change, and the opportunities that natural and working lands present to help mitigate climate risk, can lead us to the solutions needed to address the climate crisis. Strong, resilient forests that can adapt to the changing climate are essential to protecting both human and natural communities. Additionally, forests can work to mitigate the worst effects of climate change by efficiently reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through carbon storage and sequestration.
Climate Change
Modern climate change is caused by the release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gasses into our atmosphere from unchecked burning of fossil fuels, unsustainable agricultural practices, and large-scale land use changes.
Natural systems such as forests and oceans are experiencing unprecedented stress as increasing levels of greenhouse gas emissions push systems to ecological tipping points, limiting their ability to sustain ecological processes, including their ability to absorb carbon dioxide. To secure a future for all species on Earth, we must manage the levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere by dramatically cutting current levels of emissions, reducing the greenhouse gasses currently in the atmosphere, and restoring the natural systems that can help keep the climate in balance.
For more information on ways to reduce carbon emissions visit Project Drawdown: drawdown.org
Forests Threatened by Climate Change
For our forests, climate change is a threat multiplier. When different stressors interact in complex forest ecosystems, they can amplify the overall effects of change and lead to serious ecosystem damage. These interacting stressors can push forests to a tipping point where they can no longer sustain themselves, and in some cases cause forests to become a net emitter of carbon dioxide, as decomposition releases carbon into the atmosphere. Loss of woodland cover to development disrupts soils and removes trees from the cycle of capturing atmospheric carbon. Forest loss disrupts interconnected ecological systems responsible for the well-being of plants, animals, and humans.
Broadly speaking, some of these stressors which can exist on their own, or amplify another include:
- Invasive species (plants, pests, and pathogens) driven by global trade;
- Decline in tree species habitat for many of our naturally occurring, native species here in Massachusetts;
- Increases in forest conversion, both as development continues to increase and as rising sea levels cause peoples to move further inland;
- Increased browse by deer and moose, caused by a lack of natural predators and a decline in habitat due to the impacts of human development and infrastructure.
More specific to climate change, according to the New England and Northern New York Forest Vulnerability Assessment, climate change will affect forests in many overlapping/interacting ways, including:
- More variable soil moisture which can impact plant establishment and lead to soil erosion;
- Increased risk of drought which can lead to tree mortality;
- Additional impacts from forests pests and diseases. For example, pests such as hemlock woolly adelgid spread further and have increased populations due to warmer winter temperatures;
- Populations and ranges of invasive insects are often limited by cold winter temperatures. As the region continues to warm, the area will also experience expanded ranges and increased densities of these invasives;
- Greater competition from invasive plants that will benefit from longer growing seasons and increased disturbance risk (more tree dieback);
- Changes in the location and abundance of tree species. Our future forest will be made up of a different mix of species.
Nature-Based Climate Solutions
Fortunately, solutions to these problems exist today. Climate mitigation strategies are evolving quickly across the globe, but one of the most impactful strategies is in using natural systems and functions to store and remove carbon from the atmosphere. By some measures, pursuing these nature-based climate solutions, such as wetland protection and restoration, or agriculture soil management can contribute up to 30% of the global target for climate risk mitigation
Forests as a Climate Solution
Forests are an important tool in this nature-based solution toolbox. They have both high mitigative potential (i.e., removing carbon from the atmosphere) and adaptive potential (i.e., their ability to cope with changing conditions, which allows them to continue to provide essential ecosystem services into the future, such as intercepting rain from stronger storms). Concurrently, healthy, resilient forests support people and wildlife in addressing the dual crises of climate change and biodiversity loss
Maintaining, protecting, or even expanding existing forests is a critical first step in supporting their role as an impactful natural climate solution. As such, stewardship plans that keep local and regional forests healthy and resilient are an important tool for your community’s climate change response. Many great options exist, and there are strategies for identifying the right solution for the right location.
Keeping Forests as Forests
Different forest stewardship practices and strategies can be implemented across Massachusetts’ landscape to keep forests healthy and promote their ability to adapt. These practices can focus on passive management, which requires little to no intervention, to active management, which requires a more hands-on, strategic approach to forest stewardship. Selecting the right solution for the right location is essential to supporting climate, biodiversity, and landowner goals. It will help forests continue to provide ecological, economic, and cultural benefits that they provide.
Communities can keep forests as forests by:
- Creating permanently protected wildlands to foster mature forests in low-vulnerability or hard to access areas,
- Managing working woodlands to provide meaningful income from family forests, address forest health threats, and provide wood products to replace fossil fuel intensive products that drive climate change —such as steel and concrete,
- Engaging communities with wild places and local parks by promoting social, spiritual, and cultural benefits, such as forests as places of comfort during climate extremes (i.e. heat waves),
- Ensuring access for Indigenous cultural practices and rematriating land to First Nations’ stewardship in order to build cultural wellbeing and promote long-term forest health.
Speaking with a licensed consulting forester can help landowners make the best decision for their unique forested woodlands. To learn more, consult this helpful management guide.
Forest Resilience as a Climate Solution
Not all forests are well prepared to adapt to the stressors introduced by a rapidly changing climate. To help improve a forest’s ability to rebound from these dramatic changes, communities and individuals can take actions that both protect and ensure the continued presence of forests while also improving forest health and overall resilience. See options for forest stewardship for more information.
Forest resilience is defined as “the capacity of a forest to respond to a disturbance by resisting damage or stress and recovering quickly” (Catanzaro and D’Amato 2016). Actions that build resilience help a forest respond better to changing climatic conditions, and help maintain its functionality, while continuing to provide essential needs such as clean air, clean water, wildlife habitat, and recreational spaces (often referred to as ecosystem services). These actions typically include forest stewardship strategies that increase biodiversity and improve the establishment of young trees, while reducing stressors on our forests. For example, a biodiverse forest that is more resilient will have trees that vary in size, age, and species and will have fewer stressors, such as invasive species.
To better understand how you can support resilience in your community’s forests, read about how you can adapt your forest to changing conditions.
Forest Carbon as a Climate Solution
Forests play a critical role in both removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing carbon for long periods of time. Through photosynthesis, trees and other plants take in CO2 from the air to make carbon-based sugars (carbohydrates), this process is called carbon sequestration. Trees then use carbohydrates to grow their trunk, branches, roots, leaves, and other vegetative parts, this is called carbon storage. Forests also store carbon in their soils, leaf litter and in standing or fallen dead wood.
The Securing Northeast Forest Carbon website provides the latest science on forest carbon along with strategies for protecting forest carbon. It also provides information about how you can manage forest carbon in your community’s forest.
For more information on how people in your community are promoting healthy forests and protecting forest carbon, check out this interactive StoryMap.
Supporting Resources
- Understand more about Natural Climate Solutions
- Read more in the New England Forest Vulnerability Assessment
- Learn about active and passive management techniques to help ensure Healthy Forests for our Future
- Learn about active and passive management techniques for Restoring Old Growth Characteristics
- Learn more about forest carbon: Securing Northeast Forest Carbon
- Explore the Climate Change Response Framework
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Forest Stewardship Funding
No matter what goals you might have for your forest, there are a number of programs that can provide financial support and assistance.