Climate Smart Forestry: a trend to watch?
Cascade Advisory principal Anne Clawson takes on the hot topic of climate smart forestry in a guest article for Dovetail Partners, Inc.
Introduction: Climate Smart Forestry
We all know that forests can be good for the climate all on their own. In the U.S., forests sequestered the equivalent of 11% percent of total U.S. industrial emissions in 2021, according to EPA data. About fifty percent of the weight of dry wood is carbon, which means that trees and long-lived wood products store carbon.
But what if there were a way to make forests better for the climate? Making a good thing better is, essentially, the goal of climate smart forestry (CSF): incorporating practices or achieving outcomes that increase the climate benefits of forests.
Yet, the term “climate smart forestry” remains vague in meaning and use. Is it for decarbonizing the building sector? Reducing wildfire? Improving commercial forest operations? Managing public lands? Stakeholders of all kinds are monitoring the evolution of the term, and many are trying to shape the way we define it in one direction or another. This is because stakeholders know if and when a consensus is reached, the way we define the term could impact every corner of the forest and wood products sector.
This article provides an introductory orientation to the concept of Climate Smart Forestry, including how key stakeholder groups are engaging with it.
Is Climate Smart Forestry a trend or a new approach to forest management?
Right now, the answer is both and neither. If that sentence brings dismay, welcome to the challenge of understanding and defining Climate Smart Forestry! Originating around 2015, for instance in a European Forest Institute (EFI) paper and with the U.S. Government (albeit adapted to “climate smart agriculture and forestry”), the phrase grew in momentum in the U.S., especially among NGOs interested in promoting decarbonization in buildings.
By the time Joe Biden was elected president in 2020, “climate smart agriculture and forestry” was a key pillar of his strategy for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and a widely used term.
CSF potentially addresses several gaps not addressed by existing sustainable forest management (SFM) frameworks. SFM was developed as a way to “supply goods and services to meet both present-day and future needs and contribute to the sustainable development of communities,” according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
SFM focuses on commercial forestry and lacks an inherent climate component, though it is backed by decades of research and practice. CSF addresses that climate gap and expressly includes all forestland, as well as more explicitly including Indigenous peoples and other underrepresented groups.
However, there’s still not a consensus definition for the framework. The Climate Smart Wood Group, led by organizations like the World Wildlife Fund, focuses on additionality: CSF “increases forest resilience in the face of climate change and sequesters and stores more carbon over time compared to conventional practices.” The FAO layers CSF on top of SFM. Underscoring the lack of clarity on a definition, the U.S. Forest Service just closed the public comment period on an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking that essentially asks for input on how to define the term, despite a version already existing at USDA .
It also means that CSF definitions are often being guided by the sustainability and environmental values and beliefs held by various organizations, which may not always be backed by scientific research and are rarely aligned with one another.
Some organizations want an “all or nothing” definition, while others are less concerned about a nuanced or expansive definition as long as their corner of the forestry world isn’t adversely affected, including specific local or regional interests that may not align with nationwide needs or goals. The ideal scenario is, of course, an approach that lands somewhere in the middle and provides broad benefits in diverse forest conditions, but it’s hard to envision how that will look, given the fragmentation inherent in the sector, biological complexity of North America’s forests, and the speed at which the conversation is evolving.
Whether it’s a new approach to forest management or philosophical framework, there are many players in the game fighting to create the winning definition of climate smart forestry. As momentum for Climate Smart Forestry grows, various stakeholders are racing to enshrine their preferred definition, perhaps trusting that the science will follow.
Continue reading the rest of the article via Dovetail Partners, Inc., here.
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Originally published at https://www.cascadeadvisory.co on November 20, 2023.
