Securing forest services under global change

Climate change and deforestation threaten the world's forests, and the ecosystem services they provide society.  We are developing global understanding of climate and land-use risks to forestry and how to develop sustainable management approaches that secure timber, carbon stocks, and biodiversity. 

Forests provide a critical range of ecosystem services globally, from providing key habitat for biodiversity, to maintaining vast stores of carbon, and producing vital resources for the global economy such as timber, paper, pulp and fuel. These ecosystem services are threatened by climate change. Wildfires and droughts are becoming increasingly frequent and severe, weather extremes such as heatwaves, droughts and floods threaten tree survival with stressed trees more prone to severe outbreaks of pests and diseases, and forests are under ever-increasing pressure from conversion to agriculture. Understanding how these threats will change in the future, and how they interact with each other, is critical knowledge needed to adapt forest management and timber production strategies to safeguard forest ecosystem services in the 21st century.

The Centre's researchers are developing the evidence base of the severity of risks posed to timber, carbon stocks, biodiversity, and other forest-based ecosystem services under climate change and competition for land. In turn, we are building the tools to help governments and business manage these risks, enhance their resilience to stressors, and better protect their forest ecosystems. We make these advances through the use and development of land-use modelling and remote sensing tools that can be applied from local to regional or global scales, and through collaborative training of end-users.