Forest restoration must navigate trade-offs between environmental and
wood production goals

Date:
March 17, 2022
Source:
University of Cambridge
Summary:
Forest restoration schemes should prioritize restoring native
forests for greatest climate and environmental benefits, but these
benefits incur a trade-off with wood production in comparison with
tree plantations.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Forest restoration schemes should prioritise restoring native forests
for greatest climate and environmental benefits, but these benefits incur
a trade- off with wood production in comparison with tree plantations.


========================================================================== Diverse native forests store more above-ground carbon, provide more
water to nearby streams, and better support biodiversity and prevent soil erosion than simple tree plantations, a major new study published today
in the journal Science has found -- but plantations have an advantage
in wood production.

The study looked at the relative benefits of restoring native forests
versus establishing a range of simple tree plantations in terms of
biodiversity conservation and four key functions of value to humans --
or 'ecosystem services' -- provided by a forest: carbon storage, soil
erosion control, water provisioning, and wood production.

Forest restoration is gathering pace worldwide, in part as a way to tackle climate change: deforestation is a major source of carbon emissions,
and forest restoration can be a 'nature-based climate solution' to
counter global warming.

In many cases, forest restoration is also conducted for the water
provisioning and flood regulation functions of forests, and as a means
to prevent soil erosion and produce wood products.

"Establishing a tree plantation is useful for producing wood -- but not
so good for restoring biodiversity. This is a huge missed opportunity
for conservation," said Dr Fangyuan Hua, a researcher previously based
in the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology, and first author
of the paper.

Hua now works at Peking University's Institute of Ecology in China.

She added: "When the goal of a forest restoration scheme includes wood production, then there's a trade-off to be made between environmental
and production outcomes." Forest restoration schemes aimed at providing ecosystem services tend to involve tree plantations of just one or a
small number of tree species, rather than the restoration of diverse
native forests, based on an implicit assumption that tree plantations
are just as effective in delivering these services. But the authors say
there is no robust scientific evidence for this.



==========================================================================
The current synthesis involved an international, cross-disciplinary team
of researchers from seven countries, and it is based on an unprecedentedly large database consisting of almost 26,000 records from 264 studies
conducted in 53 countries.

"This is the first time that the relative performance of different forest restoration approaches in delivering forests' most salient services has
been assessed simultaneously. We can now begin to understand the synergies
and trade-offs across different restoration goals, and so help inform
decision- making," said Professor Andrew Balmford in the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology, senior author of the paper.

The study found that as with biodiversity, all three environment-oriented ecosystem services -- aboveground carbon storage, soil erosion control,
and water provisioning -- are delivered better by native forests than
by tree plantations. Soil erosion control in particular has the most
to lose from plantation-style forest restoration, and the shortfall of plantations in water provisioning is more serious in drier climates -- precisely where water is scarcer.

"When restoration goals are about environmental benefits, even if not specifically for the sake of biodiversity conservation, we should aim to restore native forests -- and biodiversity will gain as a co-benefit,"
said Hua.

However, for wood production, the limited evidence available showed
that tree plantations can outperform native forests, highlighting a
critical trade-off.



==========================================================================
Tree plantations worldwide typically use fast-growing species like pines,
firs, and Eucalyptus. These trees tend to grow tall and straight, and in actively managed plantations their growth is often enhanced by fertilisers
and weeding to prevent other plants competing for nutrition and light.

In contrast, native forests contain a mix of different tree, shrub,
and herbaceous species, and they tend not to be managed for growth. This provides a more suitable habitat with diverse food and other resources
for a range of plants and animals to thrive, but also means that wood production may be less efficient.

"The trade-off between the environmental and production benefits a
forest can provide has not been discussed much before. Restoration
probably cannot meet all goals at once," said Professor David Edwards at
the University of Sheffield's School of Biosciences and another senior
author of the study.

In addition to a need to weigh competing goals, this finding also means
that plantations might indirectly provide environmental benefits, by
allowing other, higher-biodiversity forests to be 'spared' from being
cut down for wood production.

"Plantations need to be integrated into a coherent land-use plan, so
that their better performance at producing wood gets translated into
improved conservation of environmentally valuable forests elsewhere,"
Balmford added.

The study also found that for many old or abandoned plantations across the world that seem no longer used for wood production, their environmental performance falls short of native forests. Given that these plantations
seem to be common, there are probably significant environmental benefits
to be gained from restoring them to native forests.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Cambridge. The original
text of this story is licensed under a Creative_Commons_License. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Fangyuan Hua, L. Adrian Bruijnzeel, Paula Meli, Phillip A. Martin,
Jun
Zhang, Shinichi Nakagawa, Xinran Miao, Weiyi Wang, Christopher
McEvoy, Jorge Luis Pen~a-Arancibia, Pedro H. S. Brancalion, Pete
Smith, David P.

Edwards, Andrew Balmford. The biodiversity and ecosystem
service contributions and trade-offs of forest restoration
approaches. Science, 2022; DOI: 10.1126/science.abl4649 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220317143715.htm

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