Affiliation:
1. Highstead Foundation Redding Connecticut USA
2. Trinity College Hartford Connecticut USA
3. Tufts University Medford Massachusetts USA
Abstract
AbstractForests are critical to the planetary operational system and evolved without human management for millions of years in North America. Actively managing forests to help them adapt to a changing climate and disturbance regime has become a major focus in the United States. Aside from a subset of forests wherein wood production, human safety, and experimental research are primary goals, we argue that expensive management interventions are often unnecessary, have uncertain benefits, or are detrimental to many forest attributes such as resilience, carbon accumulation, structural complexity, and genetic and biological diversity. Natural forests (i.e., those protected and largely free from human management) tend to develop greater complexity, carbon storage, and tree diversity over time than forests that are actively managed; and natural forests often become less susceptible to future insect attacks and fire following these disturbances. Natural forest stewardship is therefore a critical and cost effective strategy in forest climate adaptation.
Subject
Nature and Landscape Conservation,Environmental Science (miscellaneous),Ecology,Global and Planetary Change
Cited by
2 articles.
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