We appear to have emerged from the long and heated debate about the fate of the oldest forests we have on public lands with a consensus that these should be protected because of their value for watershed function, biodiversity and long-term carbon stores. The importance of those “public trust” values–in policy at any rate– now outweigh the financial return from harvest.
The Yale Forest Forum will hold a Restoring and Maintaining Mature and Old Private Forests in the US online program on October 10th from Noon to 1 pm EDT
But this same logic has not been applied to private forests which are the majority of forests in the US, and the financial system that we have long relied on to maintain private forests as such drives management that results in very young forests.
Private forests are far younger on average than their public forest counterparts. Young, homogeneous industrial forests are characterized as both biological deserts and often net carbon sources. By the same token, transforming the management of these forests to restore older, more natural forests could be the single most important, near-term strategy we have to mitigate global warming and reduce the risk of collapsing biodiversity.
California recently set targets for the management and conservation of older, more carbon rich and climate resilient private forests in recognition of this. This talk by Laurie Wayburn from the Pacific Forest Trust will explore a new approach that uses public-private partnerships to restore, conserve and mange for mature and old forests on private lands as a core climate mitigation strategy while still meeting needs for a variety of forest products.
This program is part of a weekly Conserving Mature and Old-Growth Forests in a Changing Climate webinar series Yale Forest Forum is holding this fall with a variety of speakers to share how they are responding to and shaping the discussion on mature and old-growth forests
The series is held on Thursdays from August 29 to December 5 from 12:00 -12:55 pm U.S. ET.
To take part in this program, register at Webinar Registration – Zoom