Objective

Increase forest resilience.

Description

Species are vulnerable to stressors at different stages in the species life cycle. Maintaining multiple age classes of a species will help increase structural diversity within stands or across a landscape, as well as buffer vulnerability to stressors of any single age class. Monocultures and even-aged stands are often more susceptible to insect pests and diseases, many of which are likely to increase in range and severity as a result of climate change; maintaining a mosaic of even-aged stands of varying ages across the landscape will increase diversity in these forest types.

Expected results

Forests less susceptible to alterations due to climate change.

Result indicators

Number of trees for each age class

Involved actors

Local government, local stakeholders, fire department, environmental agencies.

Expected timeline for action

• Medium term (5-10 years)

Best practices

• Pennsylvania – USA
• USA
• Canada

Criticalities

Possible costs for maintaining age diversity of different species.

Scope of the action

• Adaptation

Type of proposed actions

• Green

Sector of action

• Agriculture / Forests / Land use
• Biodiversity / Conservation of ecosystems
• Other

Climate impacts

• Change or loss of biodiversity
• Fires

Implementation scale

• Association of municipalities
• Province

Source

https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/