“What a forest can or cannot do under climate change really depends on how it is managed,” says Christopher Reyer from PIK, one of the conference’s organizers. “Storing carbon is not the only thing forests are good for, especially since the potential for sustainable afforestation is limited due to the scarcity of suitable land. Forests can have an important cooling effect for the region they grow in, and they substantially influence water cycles from evaporation to cloud formation to rain to groundwater formation. Yet this depends for instance on the trees you plant, hence on management.” These have all been issues discussed by the experts. All agreed that forests are under increased stress from changing conditions, namely the extraordinarily dry and warm past summers – and all are worried what the next years will bring, given the trend of human-made global warming.
The conference has been organzed by three forest research projects: FORMASAM, Reforce, and FOREXCLIM.
Weblink to FORMASAM: https://www.pik-potsdam.de/research/climate-resilience/projects/project-pages/formasam/about/forest-management-scenarios-for-adaptation-and-mitigation-formasam
Weblink to Reforce: https://www.reforce-project.eu/
Weblink to FOREXCLIM: https://forexclim.eu/
