̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Peking ̽��ֱ��

Forest restoration: trade-offs between environmental and wood production goals

jg533 — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 18:00:00 +0000

Diverse native forests store more above-ground carbon, provide more water to nearby streams, and better support biodiversity and prevent soil erosion than simple tree plantations, a major new study published today in Science has found – but plantations have an advantage in wood production.

̽��ֱ��study looked at the relative benefits of restoring native forests versus establishing a range of simple tree plantations in terms of biodiversity conservation and four key functions of value to humans - or ‘ecosystem services’ - provided by a forest: carbon storage, soil erosion control, water provisioning, and wood production.

Forest restoration is gathering pace worldwide, in part as a way to tackle climate change: deforestation is a major source of carbon emissions, and forest restoration can be a ‘nature-based climate solution’ to counter global warming. In many cases, forest restoration is also conducted for the water provisioning and flood regulation functions of forests, and as a means to prevent soil erosion and produce wood products.

“Establishing a tree plantation is useful for producing wood – but not so good for restoring biodiversity. This is a huge missed opportunity for conservation,” said Dr Fangyuan Hua, a researcher previously based in the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, and first author of the paper. Hua now works at Peking ̽��ֱ��’s Institute of Ecology in China.

She added: “When the goal of a forest restoration scheme includes wood production, then there’s a trade-off to be made between environmental and production outcomes.”

Forest restoration schemes aimed at providing ecosystem services tend to involve tree plantations of just one or a small number of tree species, rather than the restoration of diverse native forests, based on an implicit assumption that tree plantations are just as effective in delivering these services. But the authors say there is no robust scientific evidence for this.

̽��ֱ��current synthesis involved an international, cross-disciplinary team of researchers from seven countries, and it is based on an unprecedentedly large database consisting of almost 26,000 records from 264 studies conducted in 53 countries.

“This is the first time that the relative performance of different forest restoration approaches in delivering forests’ most salient services has been assessed simultaneously. We can now begin to understand the synergies and trade-offs across different restoration goals, and so help inform decision-making,” said Professor Andrew Balmford in the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, senior author of the paper.

̽��ֱ��study found that as with biodiversity, all three environment-oriented ecosystem services – aboveground carbon storage, soil erosion control, and water provisioning – are delivered better by native forests than by tree plantations. Soil erosion control in particular has the most to lose from plantation-style forest restoration, and the shortfall of plantations in water provisioning is more serious in drier climates – precisely where water is scarcer.

“When restoration goals are about environmental benefits, even if not specifically for the sake of biodiversity conservation, we should aim to restore native forests – and biodiversity will gain as a co-benefit,” said Hua.

However, for wood production, the limited evidence available showed that tree plantations can outperform native forests, highlighting a critical trade-off.

Tree plantations worldwide typically use fast-growing species like pines, firs, and Eucalyptus. These trees tend to grow tall and straight, and in actively managed plantations their growth is often enhanced by fertilisers and weeding to prevent other plants competing for nutrition and light.

“ ̽��ֱ��faster growth of trees in plantations managed for timber or pulp production comes with a greater uptake of water from the soil, leaving less water for replenishing the groundwater reserves that sustain streams, especially in drier areas,” said Sampurno Bruijnzeel, a visiting professor at King’s College London who compiled the water provisioning data and advised on the soil erosion data for the paper.

In contrast, native forests contain a mix of different tree, shrub, and herbaceous species, and they tend not to be managed for growth. This provides a more suitable habitat with diverse food and other resources for a range of plants and animals to thrive, but also means that wood production may be less efficient.

“ ̽��ֱ��trade-off between the environmental and production benefits a forest can provide has not been discussed much before. Restoration probably cannot meet all goals at once,” said Professor David Edwards at the ̽��ֱ�� of Sheffield’s School of Biosciences and another senior author of the study.

In addition to a need to weigh competing goals, this finding also means that plantations might indirectly provide environmental benefits, by allowing other, higher-biodiversity forests to be ‘spared’ from being cut down for wood production.

“Plantations need to be integrated into a coherent land-use plan, so that their better performance at producing wood gets translated into improved conservation of environmentally valuable forests elsewhere,” Balmford added.

̽��ֱ��study also found that for many old or abandoned plantations across the world that seem no longer used for wood production, their environmental performance falls short of native forests. Given that these plantations seem to be common, there are probably significant environmental benefits to be gained from restoring them to native forests.

̽��ֱ��United Nations (UN) have declared 2021-2030 the ‘UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration’. Along with many other climate-related initiatives, this promotes the scaling-up of restoration efforts on a global scale to breathe new life into our degraded ecosystems, including the restoration of forests on millions of hectares of deforested and degraded land across the world. Such restoration efforts have the potential to generate immense environmental and social benefits – but only if they are guided by a robust understanding of their consequences for environmental and other outcomes.

This research was funded by the Newton Fund of the Royal Society (UK) and the São Paulo Research Foundation (Brazil).

Reference

Hua, F. et al: ‘ ̽��ֱ��biodiversity and ecosystem service contributions and trade-offs of forest restoration approaches.’ Science, March 2022. DOI: 10.1126/science.abl4649

Co-authors of this study are based at 11 institutions in seven countries: ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, Peking ̽��ֱ��, King’s College London, Yunnan ̽��ֱ��, ̽��ֱ�� of São Paulo, Universidad de La Frontera, the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, ̽��ֱ�� of New South Wales, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, ̽��ֱ�� of Aberdeen, and ̽��ֱ�� of Sheffield.

Forest restoration schemes should prioritise restoring native forests for greatest climate and environmental benefits, but these benefits incur a trade-off with wood production in comparison with tree plantations.

When restoration goals are about environmental benefits, even if not specifically for the sake of biodiversity conservation, we should aim to restore native forests – and biodiversity will gain as a co-benefit

Fangyuan Hua

tibor13, iStock/Getty Images

Planting a young tree

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Attribution

Cambridge and Nanjing break ground on 'smart cities' Centre

plc32 — Tue, 10 Sep 2019 04:03:44 +0000

Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen J Toope joined Zhang Jinghua, Party Secretary of Nanjing City Party Committee and Nanjing Deputy Mayor Jiang Yuejian to turn the first soil at the site where the Centre's dedicated building will rise in Nanjing's Jiangbei New Area.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge ̽��ֱ��-Nanjing Centre of Technology and Innovation will establish a home for joint research and innovation in collaboration with the Chinese government, industry and China's global research universities that is dedicated to the future of creating 'smart' cities.

"Here in Nanjing, an ancient city and former imperial capital, we are embarking on a unique enterprise," Vice-Chancellor Toope said at the groundbreaking ceremony. " ̽��ֱ��innovations emerging from this Centre will enable the development of 'smart' cities in which sensors can enable sustainable lifestyles, improve healthcare, limit pollution and make efficient use of energy."

Cambridge and its Chinese partners will share revenue derived from the commercialisation of Intellectual Property (IP) developed at the Centre. It is the ̽��ֱ��’s first overseas enterprise at this scale.

Funded by the Nanjing Municipality for its first five years, the project will have its own dedicated building as a pilot urban development based on high levels of technological innovation.

At the heart of the new Centre’s activities will be research into technologies that support a modern 21st century city with integrated IT, health care and building management. Innovations emerging from the Centre will enable the development of 'smart' cities in which sensors – applied at the individual level and all the way through to the level of large infrastructure – will enable sustainable lifestyles.

As well as supporting health and wellbeing in new cities, the new Centre will help deliver efficient energy use through its academic and entrepreneurial activities.

̽��ֱ��agreement between Cambridge and Nanjing will fund positions in Nanjing, both academic and management, and will allow Cambridge-based academics to engage with specific, long-term projects in Nanjing. It will also support the establishment of a professorship, based in Cambridge, with responsibility as the Centre’s Academic Director.

̽��ֱ��project has been driven by Cambridge’s Department of Engineering, although it is hoped that there will be opportunities to widen participation to other departments and Schools. IP generated by research funded through the Centre will be licensed for commercialisation by Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s innovation branch, Cambridge Enterprise.

̽��ֱ��Centre will seek to demonstrate the power of collaboration with China’s universities, industry, government and other partners to conduct the kind of academic research of excellence today that will make life better for the city dwellers of tomorrow.

One of the two initial projects already approved is to create a high resolution scanner that can provide a low-cost easily accessible method for examining difficult areas of the body, such as bent spines, without using large and expensive CT scans.

That project will be led by Cambridge Engineering Department Professor Richard Prager, in collaboration with China's Southeast ̽��ֱ�� and established local ultrasonic manufacturer Vinno.

A second identified project led by Principal Investigator Professor Toni Vidal-Puig from Cambridge’s Clinical Biochemistry Department, will study the associated complications of increased obesity in China.

Both themes are closely linked to the focus area of local partner, NIHA (Nanjing International Healthcare Area).

̽��ֱ��Vice-Chancellor was joined at the groundbreaking ceremony by representatives from partners Nanjing ̽��ֱ��, Southeast ̽��ֱ��, Peking ̽��ֱ��. Tsinghua ̽��ֱ��, Fudan ̽��ֱ�� and Zheijiang ̽��ֱ�� as well as the Academic Director of Cambridge ̽��ֱ��-Nanjing Centre, Professor Daping Chu of Cambridge's Electrical Engineering Department, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for International Relations Eilis Ferran.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the Nanjing Municipal Government have broken ground on the Cambridge ̽��ֱ��-Nanjing Centre of Technology and Innovation.

Here in Nanjing, an ancient city and former imperial capital, we are embarking on a unique enterprise.

Vice-Chancellor Stephen J Toope

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