Adaptive Silviculture: Emerging Strategies for Climate-Resilient Forestry

Climate change, with its unequivocal impacts, poses significant challenges to forestry, including declining productivity and deteriorating biophysical conditions. While some benefits such as increased plant productivity at higher latitudes are noted, climate change is increasingly considered irreversible, necessitating a shift toward adaptation. Unlike agriculture, adaptation efforts in forestry remain limited, hindered by long rotation periods and restricted flexibility in conventional silvicultural practices. Traditional silvicultural practices, being rigid and production-centric, limit their effectiveness in addressing these challenges. Adaptive silviculture offers a flexible approach, using strategies like resistance which enhancing forest defenses to climate change, resilience which supporting faster recovery, and transition which facilitating adaptation to future conditions of climate. Each strategy involves specific treatments, from stand improvement activities like promoting mixed forestry to promoting climate-resilient species through assisted migration. This approach strengthens both productive forestry and natural ecosystems, making forests more resilient in a changing climate. By fostering adaptive potential in production systems and maintaining ecological functions, adaptive silviculture offers a promising framework to mitigate the effects of climate change on forests and ensure their sustainability.