Responsible global integrated forest management strategies
Abstract
Forests are essential to our life, supporting wild species and providing countless goods and vital ecosystem services like clean water, fresh air, protection from natural hazards and carbon storage. However, globally, forests are endangered by a threatening combination of the negative effects of climate change, land-use change effects and non-sustainable management. Responsible forest management can contribute to climate change mitigation by three general pathways: conservation (forests are currently the largest terrestrial C storage, i.e., prevent emissions from currently high forest carbon pools), sequestration (increase stocks in existing pools in and ex situ) and substitution (substitute energy-intensive products or products on fossil fuel basis with biological, regrowing products e.g., bioenergy).