Sustainable forest harvesting – climate change adaptation and mitigation practices

Intensified forest management is inevitable due to continuously increasing human population and their demand for wood products. It is important to recognize that forest harvesting intensity widely varies with different regions for a variety of reasons, and at the same time climate change directly and indirectly affect forest management activities, such as timber harvesting operations. This presentation will provide the definition of sustainable forest harvesting, and discuss forest harvesting practices from climate change adaptation and mitigation perspectives. Sustainability should be based on both forest production and other ecosystem services. Environmental and social objectives also need to be met. As tools for sustainable forest harvesting, this presentation will introduce innovative harvesting systems and technologies, development of adaptive management and silvicultural regimes, and adaptive measures related to greenhouse gas emissions during harvesting. This presentation will also highlight some of the climate change causing challenges in harvesting operations and how adaptation and mitigation can be achieved by sustainable forest operations.