How can forest expectations be met?

Forests are crucial for biodiversity, economic growth, and ecosystem services such as carbon storage. They also play a crucial role in the bio-based economy. However, these conflicting objectives have often led to different policy responses nationally and within the EU. In the MultiForest project, researchers sought to analyze the impacts of policies and management practices to gain new insights into forest policy, forest management, and land-use planning across Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Germany.

"Different policies often emphasise conflicting societal needs and are developed without sufficient coordination. This may lead to inefficient management and varying levels of forest ecosystem benefits." says Dr Clara Antón Fernández from NIBIO.

To identify best combination of forest management regimes, researchers combined simulation and optimisation to analyse how the current policies cause incoherence between diverse forest functions and how to improve the interaction between diverse policy goals.

The results showed that Norway can meet the demand for timber by 2093, but the provision of ecosystem services will be significantly influenced by policy objectives. Bioeconomic and national forest policy goals resulted in similar forest management programs. However, guidelines for biodiversity led to an increase in protected areas, continuous cover forestry and multispecies management regimes. The increase in protected areas, however, could be offset by higher management intensity elsewhere.

Increased logging has potential as a climate measure in Norway but affects other ecosystem services and biodiversity. Therefore, it is important to avoid placing excessive emphasis on the role of forests as climate change mitigation strategy.