Landscape implications of managing forests for carbon sequestration

Abstract

Abstract We explore the implications of managing forests for the dual purpose of sequestering carbon and producing timber, using a model of the forest sector that includes a Hartman-based representation of forest owners’ behaviour as well as heterogeneity in environmental conditions. We focus on France, where recent policies aim at increasing the carbon sink and where the diversity of forests makes an analysis of spatial dynamics relevant, and we use recent estimates of the shadow price of carbon consistent with the country’s climate commitments. Results suggest that forests may sequester up to 550 MtCO2eq by 2100, driven by changes in harvest levels and species choice, whilst rotation lengths increase overall. A spatial analysis reveals a high spatial variability for these trends, highlighting the importance of considering the local context. Changes in investment patterns affect the spatial distribution of forest cover types: by the end of the century, a majority of regions comprise a larger share of older, multiple-species and mixed-structure forests. Whilst such an evolution may present benefits in terms of biodiversity, ecosystem services provision and resilience, it raises questions regarding the adequacy of such developments with current forest policy, which also aims at increasing harvest levels. An overall mitigation strategy for the forest sector would likely include incentives to energy and material substitution in downstream industries, which we did not consider and may interact with sequestration incentives.