Planted Forests: A Key Nature Based Solution for Restoring Forest Landscapes and Mitigating Climate Change

Drawing from the Millennium Ecosystem Services, planted forests have been increasingly important for provisioning services of wood fiber and commodity production, and have emerged as a unique regulating Nature-based solution (NBS) for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Forest plantations account now for at least 30% of global industrial roundwood production and their contribution can be further increased, while reducing pressures on natural forests. Planted forests have been proposed as one of the most efficient and cost-effective means to store more atmospheric carbon and reduce adverse impacts of climate change in the short- to medium-term, along with improved forest management and reduced emissions from forest area loss.

Increasing the amount and productivity of planted forests is a crucial method to meet increasing timber and climate demands by capturing carbon in forests and subsequent wood products and providing short-run terrestrial energy. They also can help adapt to forest species migration by purposeful introduction of forest species adapted to new climate in a warmer planet, and provide additional forest biodiversity, soil health, and water quality and quantity benefits.

Increases in planted forests to achieve their promise for economic provisioning and climate regulating services mandate that a host of technical, research, policy issues must be resolved quickly. These include technical questions such as (1) the trends and magnitude of planted forests extent needed to increase production and climate roles; (2) the relative benefits of plantations versus natural forest restoration or retention for carbon storage; (3) questions of where such plantings can occur and how to deploy well-performing species to new regions; (4) the technical capacity required to produce seedlings; (5) the rapid development of forest products research and development of engineered forest and mass timber products, and (6) the environmental benefits and impacts of planted forests.

Massive expansion of planted forests must also resolve issues such as (7) rural land tenure status and rights in developed and developing countries, (8) regulations promoting or limiting intensive public forest land management, (9) infrastructure requirements and development; (10) cooperation,  partnerships, and policy implementation, (11) investment opportunities, costs, returns, and incentives required to attract private landowners and outgrowers to plant forests, and (12) the effects on local and global timber markets.

These substantial questions must be resolved or planted forests will not achieve their potential to produce desirable wood fiber and products supplies, realize bioenergy opportunities, or store and offset vast amounts of global carbon emissions. This research tackles these questions while assessing historical trends and current status of planted forests worldwide and identifying the best practices for the development of planted forests for landscape restoration, climate change mitigation, and range of environmental, social, and economic co-benefits.