Mitigating Negative Impacts on Southern Forests

(Gucinski- SFS Ch31)

Potential effects of climate change on opportunistic species, especially invasives, are being studied, as are fragmentation-related barriers to plant migration, limits on seed, disruption of pollinators, and other potential problems. The better we understand the many facets of the possible responses to potential climate change, the better our position to weigh courses of action that remain open.

The following may serve as useful starting points for further exploration of possible options for mitigating negative climate change impacts on Southern U.S. forests:

• Manage forests for low-probability climate scenarios that have large-scale consequences. In this case, diversity may bring resiliency, and ultimately sustainability. This strategy may be especially appropriate for the Southern United States, where the rotation period for reaching harvest potential is relatively short
• Weigh the risks of omission against those of commission. Sometimes the risks incurred through inaction are greater than by implementing active approaches early, especially when these approaches would be beneficial regardless of the effects of impending climate change
• Analyze the potential cost of delaying action in the hope of obtaining better information when the delay may eliminate viable options. This is the argument advanced by the National Academies in endorsing the IPCC findings. Delaying action until there is greater certainty about the potential effects of climate change may have its own costs. Of course, this does mean that additional information should not be sought or consulted
• Be aware that risk assessment is influenced by both objective and subjective elements, and that consistency in assessment approaches will improve our chances of meeting our objectives

Approaches in which potential global climate change is treated as a set of future risks have often been ignored, and certainly have not been used adequately to assess possible impacts in the Southern United States. The existence of decision-theory frameworks, and their use in other sectors, makes this a viable option for managers, who can also benefit from additional research in the science community. If by improving our understanding of the risk spectrum now and applying the insights gained in the planning process, we may have many more options in the near term. Future climate change constraints may limit the choices for climate change mitigation considerably.