Planning the future forests: managing for wildlife in a climate constrained landscape

• Multipurpose functionality is a paradigm when it comes to forest management. This includes sustainability, resilience, stand stability, wildlife management, recreation, clean water and air, or healthy soils - to name a few. The world is aiming at a maximum global warming of 2-deg by 2100, but cumulative emissions are still rising. Higher temperatures are associated with higher risks of extreme events such as storm, flood, droughts, pests and fires etc. - and at the same time, forest systems are key for any mitigation activity to avoid such dangerous climate change. But how will a managed forest look like in the future? How can we understand the underlying dynamics and make our forests fit for the increased need for carbon storage, biomass for energy and sustainable wood and non-wood forest products like game, while maintaining biodiversity, recreational and protected areas. Moreover, we need to address all challenges on limited land and establish action from policy development allthe way to their implementation within a short time frame. Based on Sweden's forests, traditionally considered a role model for successfully bridging a multitude of demands, we present a modeling approach that should serve as a planning tool for enhancing forests' risk resilience and capacity of integrating diverse demands and different ecosystem-services. Guided by the expertise of Sweden's Environmental Protection Agency, national forest and habitat shift models from SLU and KTH will be linked with global land use models and engineering tools from IIASA. Hereby, special emphasis will be put on ecosystem services from wildlife, different scenarios of forest intensification and the optimization of biomass for bioenergy production. First estimates show that spatially explicit modeling can substantially support decision making by optimizing multipurpose use of both managed and protected areas and steering habitat shift for maintaining biodiversity and improving wildlife (game)management.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Land and Water Resources Engineering

Mark- och vattenteknik

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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