On one hand, there are many efforts afoot in private forests towards greater carbon storage. On the other, there's planning for the prevention of "conversion" of forestland into, basically, nonforest. It goes on to say that there's a huge incentive for managers to 'keep forests in forests' to maintain the carbon storage there, and this can be done by encouraging landowners to pursue conservation easements, supporting the work of land trusts, and continuing to help landowners realize personal and financial benefits from their lands which encourage continued stewardship.

Management that increases growing stocks of trees and larger standing volumes while minimizing disturbances will provide the greatest carbon sequestering value.

With the predicted temperature increases of 3.6 to 11.9 degrees F, looking to the past to determine good management practices tomorrow looks less useful. Forest communities may begin to dissolve and re-coalesce into new associations of species, changes we can only imagine today.

Recommendation: rather than managing for any desired mix of species in the next 100 years, it may become necessary to step back to a more basic objective of simply maintaining forest health and stability, to protect the forest's primary functions, including its ability to survive as forest.

This means managing for resiliency and makes it important that we keep all of the pieces. Mixed-species forests are more productive over the long term and can thus sequester more carbon at a higher rate and store it more predictably than plantations.

Increased fire severity and frequency is a working assumption, and "stand-replacing fires" can result in complete loss of any carbon mitigation benefit they were providing. So prescribed burns, while adding CO2 to the atmosphere, may be necessary. Likewise, responsible biomass removal that minimizes fire risk and supplies products that offset fossil fuel use provides a double bonus.

Strategies to consider:

When selecting species to manage for or introduce, consider their potential growth and viability in a warmer climate.

Manage for stocking levels and for species mixes that will reduce the risk of catastrophic disturbances.

Plan for stand/landscape-level patterns that will promote continuity and heterogeneity: patches, mixed-species stands, and reserve networks to provide refugia for species under climate stress.

Interesting, and good to know what foresters are thinking of along these lines. What's key is that the kinds of management strategies suggested in the article fit the Forest Guild's standards for excellent forestry practices ... and if you're going to manage a forest, you ought to at least do it well.