Impacts of forestry on boreal forests: An ecosystem services perspective

Abstract

Forests are widely recognized as major providers of ecosystem services, including timber, other forest products, recreation, regulation of water, soil and air quality, and climate change mitigation.Extensive tracts of boreal forests are actively managed for timber production, but actions aimed at increasing timber yields also affect other forest functions and services. Here, we present an overview of the environmental impacts of forest management from the perspective of ecosystem services. We show how prevailing forestry practices may have substantial but diverse effects on the various ecosystem services provided by boreal forests. Several aspects of these processes remain poorly known and warrant a greater role in future studies, including the role of community structure.Conflicts among different interests related to boreal forests are most likely to occur, but the concept of ecosystem services may provide a useful framework for identifying and resolving these conflicts.Keywords: forest management; timber production; conflict; trade-off; sustainability 2 IntroductionBoreal forests account for approximately one third of the world's forest cover (UNEP et al. 2009).These forests are a major source of timber products, but also provide a range of other goods and services that are essential to human well-being (Vanhanen et al. 2012; Brandt et al. 2013;Gauthier et al. 2015). In general, the multifunctional role of forests is widely recognized within science (Harrison et al. 2010) and policy (e.g. the EU Forestry Strategy 1 ). Boreal forests have a crucial role in global climate regulation and climate change mitigation (Pan et al. 2011). They also harbor unique biodiversity, and the biome includes some of the world's largest areas of intact primary forest (UNEP et al. 2009). Therefore the development of boreal forests in the coming decades is of great importance for both humans and global biodiversity.Unlike tropical and temperate forests, boreal forests as a whole have remained relatively stable in area in recent decades (UNEP et al. 2009;FAO 2015). In several boreal countries forest conversion is discouraged by regulatory measures, and overall, the region is characterized by a net gain in growing forest stock (FAO 2015). However, extensive tracts of boreal forests are actively managed and harvested for timber production, with changes to the structure of the forests and impacts on wildlife and ecosystem functioning (Bradshaw et al. 2009;Kuuluvainen et al. 2012;Venier et al. 2014).Throughout the boreal region, intact forests are concentrated in the northernmost or otherwise inaccessible regions and, even still, are not extensively protected (Potapov et al. 2008). Moreover, there is ongoing pressure to harvest more forest biomass for example to increase the use of renewable energy according to set targets. The suggested ways of intensifying forest biomass production to achieve this (e.g. fertilization, tree species choice, and whole-tree harvesting) may further aggravate forestry's impacts on ecosystems (Laudo...

Carbon Pools in a Hemiboreal Over-Mature Norway Spruce Stands

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Trade‐offs in berry production and biodiversity under prescribed burning and retention regimes in boreal forests

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Variable retention forestry in European boreal forests in Russia

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