0000000001112546
AUTHOR
Nicklas Forsell
Climate targets in European timber-producing countries conflict with goals on forest ecosystem services and biodiversity
The role of increased timber harvests in reaching climate mitigation targets for European countries will be limited if the protection of forest ecosystem services and biodiversity is to be achieved, suggests an empirical forest model driven by future scenarios to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C in 2100.The European Union (EU) set clear climate change mitigation targets to reach climate neutrality, accounting for forests and their woody biomass resources. We investigated the consequences of increased harvest demands resulting from EU climate targets. We analysed the impacts on national policy objectives for forest ecosystem services and biodiversity through empirical forest simulation and mul…
Spatially explicit analysis of biodiversity loss due to different bioenergy policies in the European Union
The demand for bioenergy is expected to increase rapidly in the EU, driven by policies aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through bioenergy. The downside of the increased use of bioenergy is the risk to biodiversity and ecosystem services, both within the EU but also outside the EU borders through indirect effects. Our study provides a spatially explicit analysis of biodiversity losses from land use, land-use change, and forestry under three different EU bioenergy policy scenarios in the detail of NUTS2 administrative units. The study combined methodologies for biodiversity impact assessment with a global high resolution economic land use model GLOBIOM. Potential loss of global speci…
An optimization approach for balancing global wood demand and environmental goals on management strategies in Swedish forests
The transition towards the bio-based economy in the future increases the demand for raw materials from the forests. This will increase the extraction of wood from the forests but may adversely affect its biodiversity and other ecosystem services (ESS). The growth rate of most tree species in Sweden is predicted to increase because of changing climate. It will however be counterbalanced by an increased risk of damage due to extreme weather events such as storms. Therefore, it is necessary to develop adaptive management measures that exploit the benefits of climate change while minimizing the damages on growing stock, ESS and biodiversity resulting from its risks. It is further important to c…