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Episode 5: Raised to solve problems
56 Plays1 day ago
Season 3 of Branching Out: The Forest Podcast explores how IUFRO scientists work across disciplines to address emerging issues through Task Forces. In the fifth episode, we focus on the IUFRO Task Force Stand Complexity in Planted Forests and discuss the resilience and value of planted forests, and the need to address common misconceptions.
Host Gerda Wolfrum from IUFRO Headquarters and co-host Clarissa Chimeremeze Enyi, Nigeria, from the International Forestry Students’ Association (IFSA), spoke with Task Force co-leads Christophe Orazio, Institut Européen de la Forêt Cultivée (IEFC), France, and Tim Payn, Bioeconomy Science Institute Maiangi Taiao, New Zealand.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:02
Speaker
Barned forests are a small area. They're extremely valuable, often misunderstood. um ah But I think one of the really key things is an acceleration of global change.
00:00:20
Speaker
Hello everyone, I'm your host Gerda Wolfram from the International Union of Forest Research Organization, IJUFRO, the Global Network for Forest Science Collaboration. You're listening to the fifth episode of season three of Branching Out the Forest podcast.
00:00:34
Speaker
It's great to have you with us as we explore more forest science. In this season, we'll find out how scientists in IJUFRO work across disciplines to tackle emerging topics. This work takes place in our 13 task forces.
00:00:48
Speaker
Last time, we explored the relationship between forests, water, people and governance. And this time, we'll talk about planted forests and the work of the EU4 task force that looks into stand complexity in planted forests.
Meet the Hosts and Guests
00:01:01
Speaker
And here's my co-host, Clarissa Gimere-Mese-Engi, emmermiia and you ah Crown Vice President of the International Forestry Students Association, IFSA. Thanks for being a co-host for this episode, Clarissa.
00:01:13
Speaker
Please introduce yourself. Hello everyone. I am Clarissa and having followed this podcast series for quite some time, and I must share that it's an absolute pleasure to be co-hosting today's episode. Thank you.
00:01:27
Speaker
Thank you and welcome to Branching Out, Clarissa. And welcome to our guests, Christophe Horacio and Tim Payne. It is great to have you with us.
00:01:40
Speaker
Christoph and Tim, firstly, we'd love to hear a little bit about your background and your work in Iufro as Task Force Co-leads. Let's start with you, Christoph. Can you tell us a bit about your academic background and your current role in Iufro, and what is your research focus?
00:01:56
Speaker
Hello everyone. I am a forester, a pure forester, having a forest degree from the prestigious Forest School of Nancy, France. I had also a master's degree in Marseille on arid, mountainous and Mediterranean ecosystems.
00:02:09
Speaker
um I started my professional life in tropical areas with the Sierra Research Institute on the Iranian island. And then I spent some time working in forest management in the French service and other research organization in France.
00:02:25
Speaker
I worked for a while in the international organizations such as EFI, European Forest Institute. And now I am the director of the European Institute for Planted Forest. It's a multi-actor network gathering academics, companies, forest owners, managers, insurance...
00:02:41
Speaker
In brief, any organization concerned by the status of planted forests. And I have the pleasure to co-chair the task force Stand Complexity in Planted Forest. And the interesting thesis of this task force is that the subtitle is Harnessing Stand Complexity to Improve the Resilience of Single and Mixed Species Plantation for Nature, Climate and People.
00:03:00
Speaker
I am pleased to co-lead this task force with Nelson Tiffaut, Margarita Thome and Tim Payne, you will hear name now. So my main focus is of research is about sustainability and resilience of planted forests.
00:03:13
Speaker
And mine my task as EUFRO coordinator of a task force is to reach as much as possible a of the deliverables we have to produce. Thank you, Christophe. Now I would like to ask Thiem.
00:03:26
Speaker
What is your academic background? Where does your main research in Christ lie? And how does this all connect with your work in EUFRO? Thanks very much Clarissa and hello hello everyone.
00:03:39
Speaker
um ah yeah suppose I'm originally a soil scientist with a degree from North Wales, University College of North Wales in soil science and chemistry. ah but broadened dramatically since then. I did PhD at Canterbury University of New Zealand ah in forestry, mainly nutrient cycling and tree nutrient uptake.
00:04:00
Speaker
um But I i suppose I've worked globally as well, bit like Christoph, not for organizations but from New Zealand into organizations through the Montreal process, working group and technical advisory committee on sustainable management and criterion indicators.
00:04:18
Speaker
So a broad area. um Currently, I'm an Emeritus and Principal Scientist at the Bioeconomy Science Institute in Rotorua New Zealand, and which is a new organization. We merged four of our um big primary sector institutes last June.
00:04:37
Speaker
CIO being one of them, which was the Forestry Institute, Forestry and Biomaterials. And I'm in that organization at the moment. And I suppose, been involved in UFRO for a long time.
00:04:49
Speaker
um I'm co-chair with them Christoph on the complexity, the complex forests. Also, I'm a co-chair um on the building and integrated vision vision of the forest-based sector within a bioeconomy, um which has led out of Boku and I'm the coordinator of a working party as well on criterion indicators for sustainable forest management research related to that. So I'm quite broad these days. i suppose criterion indicators sustainable forest management certification is me, environmental forestry, but I've worked pretty much all of my career on planted forests with some sort of natural forest systems, but I'm mainly in the in the planted area. So yes, that's me.
00:05:36
Speaker
Well, thank you, Tim, and thank you, Christophe. So we've learned, among other things, that that your work focuses on sustainable forest management practices in general, but with a special focus on planted forests, right?
Understanding Planted Forests
00:05:48
Speaker
um So Christophe, to start with, can you briefly explain what planted forests are? Where do we find them and why do we need them? and So based on FAO definition, planted forests are resulting from human intervention, sowing, planting.
00:06:03
Speaker
So what makes them different from naturally regenerated forests is that they result 100% from a human decision. There is always an intention behind these forests. Plantation for commercial purpose, timber, biomass, non-products. And other planted forests is another type of planted forests. They are established for other ecosystem services, soil protection, carbon sequestration, ecosystem restoration.
00:06:27
Speaker
um We have to note that planted forests are instrumental for wood supply worldwide um because 76% of planted forests globally are managed for the production of essential goods such as wood products, pulp and fiber, fuel and bioenergy.
00:06:44
Speaker
With only 7% of the global forest area in 2015, they contributed to 46% of the global industrial roundwood supply. And they will play an important role because we need to meet the future demand that will require an increasing resilience of planted forests for global source.
00:07:03
Speaker
um It is estimated that to meet the projected industrial roundwood demand, by 2015, an additional 33 million hectares of highly productive plantation forests should be established.
00:07:15
Speaker
ah So you can see there is really an important need for increasing the planted forest area. They also contribute to a a large range of forest ecosystem services.
00:07:27
Speaker
ah They can contribute regulating climate, recovering maintaining soil, structure and quality of improving water quality, providing habit habitat for animal, vegetal species and corridor for wildlife.
00:07:39
Speaker
It's also a strategy to fight desertification, protect watershed, and they are also increasingly established to sequester carbon. So the important message is that planted forests have the potential to deliver multiple objectives ah despite trade-off across production, profitability and social activity, acceptability and environmental benefits.
00:08:00
Speaker
So as you can see it is really important to understand how to promote planted forests and the i have a long-term productivity resilience of these plantations and this is why we need the work achieved by the task force.
00:08:16
Speaker
I couldn't agree more Christophe. I mean like you said, there is always an intention for these forests which simply means they are raised to solve problems. And on that note, I would like to ask Steve.
00:08:28
Speaker
So, we say that planted forests are crucial for meeting the global and rising demand for wood and wood products. But we also see that they are under serious stress, right?
00:08:39
Speaker
When we think about planted forests, we picture managed industrial plantations that are pure, that is, uni uniform rows of the same three spaces, all with the same age, which poses the question, are these plantations not less resilient than natural forests when it comes to problems such as pastime diseases, droughts, and other threats?
00:09:01
Speaker
From your perspective, Tim, what are the biggest threats to planted forests? Thanks, Clarissa. no Yes, threats. um I suppose one of the biggest things is that they the threats associated with planted forests are exactly the same as the threats associated with natural forests. So there's nothing particularly different.
00:09:21
Speaker
um I mean, we're thinking about pests and diseases. We're thinking about fire. We're thinking about so erosion, we're thinking about storms, wind damage.
00:09:32
Speaker
Climate change is a major, major driver at the moment. We're getting more intense storms, we're getting hotter, drier weather conditions, we're getting more intense, possibly more frequent fires.
00:09:46
Speaker
and generally warmer and sort of suppose more amenable conditions for pests and diseases mean that we're probably going to be getting more pests and diseases as well. So the challenges that planted forests face much the same as the challenges that natural forests face and I think the Euphro task force is where we're actually trying to really understand and how different those risks are.
00:10:09
Speaker
We're actually working on a paper at the moment trying to understand sort of climate scenarios and and where things might go and how they might then affect the planted forests. um But certainly there's concern about um uniform one to two sort of species intensively managed plantations maybe being more of a power risk.
00:10:30
Speaker
around the natural forests. And I think there's a lot of research required. there's There's a goodly amount. We're pulling a lot together at the moment. And so that sort of comes, and we'll talk a little later, with ah I think, about perceptions um and what people actually think of planted forests versus what the reality might be.
00:10:51
Speaker
And I suppose within the task force, we're looking at, so it's not just the natural in the plantations, but in between there as well is the, what FAO calls other planted forests, which is less intensively, probably more species and things. And that gives us a great opportunity to start looking at things like mixtures,
00:11:10
Speaker
and resilience and and so on and so forth, because we really do. The demands are going to get bigger and bigger and bigger as population grows. um so We do need resilient forests. and If the risks are higher, we probably need to put more focus on resilience than possibly some other ecosystems.
00:11:29
Speaker
Thank you, Tim. I mean, that's obvious. The threats and the challenges are the same for all types of forests. And with especially climate change being a major driver and and we see threats increasing, or um we need more resilient forests.
00:11:44
Speaker
um So building on Tim's statement, Christoph, what can be done to increase the resilience of forests and planted forests in particular?
Challenges and Misconceptions in Forestry
00:11:53
Speaker
I guess this is where the stand complexity comes in right?
00:11:56
Speaker
Can you explain a bit about the stand complexity and what it means? Yes, so there is a dominant hypothesis that stating that large areas of monospecific regular stands are more sensitive to many hazards, especially to biotic damages.
00:12:13
Speaker
As for robotic damages, you can have trade-offs already well known, like for example what is good for wind stability might be not so good for fires and things like that.
00:12:25
Speaker
So um indeed we are interested in two aspects or three aspects of complex complexification. ah First question is what means complexity? We needed a bit of time with this the task force to decide what do we put behind this world.
00:12:39
Speaker
Basically, we we combine mixed species. So instead of having only one species in one plantation, you have many species. But it can be also many clones. So it can be the same species with the diversity of clones.
00:12:53
Speaker
You can have the diversity of structures and patterns. So it means that we can have not only one age in the plantation, but two or three ages of trees or trees smaller than others.
00:13:05
Speaker
and We can introduce edge roads, so it means that the diversification is not within the stand but surrounding the stand of the plantation. We can have ah some gaps, making some plantation with gaps all of different species.
00:13:23
Speaker
We can have a also mosaic more at landscape level, where we try to have a discontinuity at the landscape level, taking advantage of the local um ah relief we have, or mountains, or whatever ex exposition we have.
00:13:39
Speaker
Then the second question is how much does it improve resilience? So this is a tricky one ah because ah we we need to demonstrate that with mixed species, with diversified structures and patterns, we are able, for example, to to reduce attacks of insects such as bark beetles and conifers, for example.
00:14:02
Speaker
ah but then can make life of firefighters more complicated because they cannot go through or reach so the trees that they want. and We need also to identify how much physical and chemical barriers are efficient to avoid transmission of insect and diseases.
00:14:18
Speaker
and And what are the best mixtures regarding different risks? Because if you put two extremely inflammable trees together, they will be prone to fire again. so um So the the complexity is everywhere.
00:14:32
Speaker
And then we have always one concern. As I said before, as most of these planted forests are for economical purposes, the question is what level of complexity is sustainable? What is remain profitable?
00:14:45
Speaker
So how to plant trees, for example, that are not growing at the same speed from scratch? Will we be able to produce timber out of or of all of them? What are the best mixture composition? How to establish head roles?
00:14:58
Speaker
How to organize landscape with plantations? Where irregularization is advantageous? So there is many, many issues to address behind this complex complexification.
00:15:10
Speaker
Thank you Christoph for framing that so clearly. So, you were saying that making planted forests more diverse can make them stronger too. This also holds true for society, I would say.
00:15:23
Speaker
But, does this also influence public perception? It seems that people often hold negative views of planted forests. For example, there there are sayings that they are poor in biodiversity, they consume too much water, or cannot be used for recreation.
00:15:39
Speaker
So, Tim, can you share some insights, perhaps from New Zealand, on how planted forests are perceived and how we can begin to change the common narrative? Thanks, Clarissa. Yes, perception is very, very important. And planted forests do have ah negative perception often.
00:15:59
Speaker
And often that's not necessarily based on truths, um understanding why those perceptions are there and how to change them. We spent quite a lot of time in New Zealand. um Plantation forests um basically provide all of our timber and sort of wood production both.
00:16:19
Speaker
in New Zealand and exported and there's close to no harvesting of our natural forests. So we've developed very intensive ah plantations, ah managed intensively since the 1930s. And it's quite interesting that myths about planted forest or plantations have been around for a very long time. um but as yeah As you mentioned, use of water, lack of biodiversity, um degrading the soils, and and those sorts of things.
00:16:48
Speaker
And it's hard to know really sometimes where they come in from and what's driving them. ah But we've we've got probably quite a few good examples at the moment ah in New Zealand of, I suppose you might call it concerns around planted forests um taking over agricultural land, and then having a big impact on rural communities.
00:17:13
Speaker
um We've also got sort of concerns about noise and safety and dust and and a variety of things. So we did some surveys and and overall people perceive that our planted forests are very important economically.
00:17:27
Speaker
ah but there are perceptions that so we could do better, which definitely you always can. um Natural feeling, I suppose, that diverse forests are definitely better.
00:17:39
Speaker
um Natural forest systems as opposed to exotic species are better. And again, this comes down to sort of doing probably more research because um yeah there's always there's always gaps, but actually looking at where yeah What backs up these things and how do you actually change people's perceptions?
00:17:58
Speaker
We developed myth-busting series of fact sheets with the New Zealand Forest Owners Association um a while ago where we basically looked at planted forests and biodiversity planted forests and tried to sort of have a snappy um here are the facts type of thing that you could then share with people. And I think the key to helping people understand planted forests better there is really good communication and also making it um human.
00:18:27
Speaker
So not just telling people biodiversity, there is lots of biodiversity or that isn't an issue. ah But basically, what does it mean for people say in the local community, recreation is a really big thing in New Zealand forests, mountain biking, walking and things and and people see the values of that and that it's becoming more and more. So very hard to change but you just have to keep talking about it and explaining things.
00:18:53
Speaker
and it's certainly quite a challenge. my I had a PhD supervisor retiring when I was just starting my PhD who said he'd spent his career trying to explain our pine species right out of pine doesn't degrade soil and it doesn't. It changes it, yes, but doesn't degrade it. But he spent 30 or 40 years explaining that to people and I'm still explaining that to people.
00:19:17
Speaker
So it's it's an interesting challenge. So that is interesting, Tim, that you're saying there are many myths about planted forests. um They've been around for a long time, but ah they're not often grounded in truth. But I think we see this in in many aspects.
00:19:33
Speaker
And communication is the key, as you say. You have to really get the people on board to convince them, to show them um how it's done and and that these myths are actually myths and not necessarily backed up by facts.
Task Force Goals and Activities
00:19:50
Speaker
so Christoph, we've learned a lot now about the pros and cons of planted forests. um Let's talk a bit now about the goals of the task force on stent complexity in planted forests.
00:20:03
Speaker
Where do you see the main research gaps that your task force seeks to fill? So we will try to address one of the gaps you raised just before. and We try to compile evidences to go further, the easy bashing or the non-documented statements within the task force.
00:20:19
Speaker
So with the campaign, there is a FAO paper in preparation based on FAO data about the reality of planted forest A2 and evolution worldwide.
00:20:31
Speaker
So we will have a nice statistic assessment based on the latest data provided by FAO. We will also work ah with Margarida Tome, the other colleague, on the the main issues and trends for the main planted for its species in the world. So we will have a series of fact sheets.
00:20:49
Speaker
We will also try to compile evidences of successful and failed mixtures because it's always very difficult to make mixtures. So we have launched a survey a long time ago. we will try to reactivate it.
00:21:01
Speaker
And we have also four-mix network of a mixed trial where we try on the ground mixed stands to record how much they grow, how healthy c they are, how easy they are to provide timber or not.
00:21:15
Speaker
um Nelson has already published many papers to share good practices to promote good plantation in Nordic climate.
00:21:26
Speaker
ah Hopefully we will be able to have a review on social perception of planted forests worldwide. This is one of the challenges not sure we will be able to address yet. ah We plan to have papers and webinars on resilience and threats are affecting the main plantation.
00:21:42
Speaker
And of course, we will finish gathering the whole team and all people interested by the topic of plantage forest in the International Congress on Plantage Forest in 2028. Thank you so much, Christophe, for sharing these gaps. Now we see where we are and where needs more work.
00:22:00
Speaker
So I would like to ask Tim. Tim, can you share some of the activities of your tax force? How will it go about its work? And what would you like to have achieved by the Nesta Youth Row World Conference in Nairobi, Kenya in 2029? Yeah, I'll just pick up on Christophe mentioned the FAO.
00:22:22
Speaker
aber that we're pulling together. We yeah developed one in 2015 based on the Forage Resources Assessment ah for 2015. And we're basically updating and and and ah looking at things again in using the latest data.
00:22:40
Speaker
That's a highly collaborative and effort across the task force and a number of other agencies. um That paper, we'll look at sort of scenarios and where we're going in the future and how we might be able to meet some of the demands in the future, but what are the risks and what are the yeah sort of opportunities for say intensification of existing planted forests or new forestation, things like that and those sorts of aspects.
00:23:10
Speaker
Because you know 49 percent of roundwood production from planted forests globally and more and more demand of that sort of material and a lot of other products, we basically going have to focus on a wider range of things in the future. So we're trying to look at that.
00:23:27
Speaker
That paper, I think, can feed into, it there's a new collaborative partnership on forests initiative developing on planted forests slash plantations.
00:23:37
Speaker
And hopefully our paper can feed into that quite nicely and potentially the same for a few few aspects of that piece of work. But we've also done, and something I'm very keen to keep pushing, we did some sort of work in the Southern Hemisphere on how do we communicate um benefits and impacts and opportunities of planted forests and started developing up some thinking there and understanding how we communicate with stakeholders, um're using infographics and all sorts of interesting things, are understanding our audience.
00:24:08
Speaker
so wanting to keep that moving along if we can. It sort of started with a hiss and a roar and has been a bit quiet for a wee while, but that'll also feed in through the task force. um And specifically in New Zealand, we've taken the opportunity...
00:24:23
Speaker
Again, linked to the task force to, we have an experimental forest, Periki Experimental Forest, which was established in 1969 and is just about to be harvested but it harvested for the second time.
00:24:36
Speaker
And that's going to contribute ah to the whole complex forests dialogue through new experiments on mixtures and and all aspects of those, so of being a focal point in New Zealand, then linking through into some of the global work too.
00:24:50
Speaker
So there's probably quite a lot on. And yeah, feeding through into the World Congress, I think I'm looking to see how we can increase understanding, come up with new approaches potentially to do all these trade-offs between the economics and the ecology and the environment and people, which is extremely important, um so that we can keep planted forests moving, but in a resilient way.
00:25:19
Speaker
but That's amazing. There are lots of exciting activities going on in your task force and intense collaboration. um And I do like the bit about the communication because I think, as we said before, it's so important to get your audiences on board to get people understand about planted forests and why they're needed and and also for for the myth-busting that we mentioned before.
00:25:44
Speaker
So, Christoph, before we wrap up, actually is there anything you'd like to add to what Tim just said? And um which key message would you like our listeners to remember from this conversation?
The Importance of Resilience and Youth Perspectives
00:25:57
Speaker
and As I am the head of a multi-act norm network, IEFC, and first I would like to raise the importance of science stakeholder dialogue. This is my daily life and I'm happy there is a task force tool within IUFRO to make it globally.
00:26:11
Speaker
so that is the first point I wanted to raise. The second point is um what makes a difference in planted forests is that there is a value, there is a human decision, there is someone who wants to care the planted forests.
00:26:25
Speaker
So this makes it more resilient somehow. Whatever the reason is why you planted the trees, well there will be someone cares about keeping them running. So you can have shorter rotation, you can have more active management.
00:26:38
Speaker
There is someone carrying this forest and this helps them to be more resilient. And the this the main technical message perhaps would be that plantations occupy a relatively small area ah but they contribute to a significant part of timber production worldwide.
00:26:54
Speaker
Planted forests are diverse but they can also contribute to many ecosystem services, soil protection, carbon sequestration. And all these ecosystem services include biodiversity.
00:27:06
Speaker
They can be used for biodiversity restoration. there There is no strict trade-off between biodiversity and plantations. In most cases, plantations are organic plantations.
00:27:18
Speaker
It's not like intensive farming. It is just a matter of managing it properly in the appropriate location. That is an absolute and powerful note to end on, Christophe.
00:27:30
Speaker
It really underscores that managing for complexity is a necessity for the future of our forests. Thank you so much for sharing that. So, Thiem, we would also like to invite you to give us your key takeaway from our talk today.
00:27:44
Speaker
Okay, yes. um I suppose it's two things, possibly be three. Christoph mentioned planted forests are a small area. They're extremely valuable, often misunderstood.
00:27:55
Speaker
um ah But I think one of the really key things is an acceleration of global change, whether it's population growth, climate change, increased storms intensity and so on and so forth. So resilience is key.
00:28:11
Speaker
Forest's resilient, but so resilience is going to be far more important in the future if we are to meet sort of goals of Wood production, ecosystem services, non-timber forest products are coming through in quite a big way.
00:28:26
Speaker
The whole bio-economy and looking at things like chemicals and other things from forests, ah you know potentially going to be new to demands. So, global change, increasing demand, um very valuable.
00:28:40
Speaker
and So, we need new models of planted forests which allow us to achieve those goals. Well, thank you. This is a very powerful final statement also from you. um And especially also to emphasize the importance of resilience in view of these changes that are happening faster and faster. And obviously there's still a lot to figure out about how to achieve this resilience and how perhaps the right mix of diversity, at the level of complexity can make forests more resilient and can also ensure that economic, environmental and social goals are well balanced.
00:29:17
Speaker
um Now finally, I'd like to hear also from Clarissa, what she has learned in this talk. Maybe bring in the youth perspective. Thank you, Gertr. And part of me, i like um as a student, I like to research the terms in any given topic.
00:29:32
Speaker
So when we talk about complexity as a term, on its own, it means difficult. Difficult to understand, difficult to solve or to predict because of the multiple interconnected parts. like where do these threats start from they won't stand the chance if we have complex tents complex forests so introducing stand complexity is how we build insurance into our landscapes so to the young forestry professionals and students worldwide the goal is not just to harvest timber okay it is to inherit and to steward resilient biodiverse and climate smart ecosystems that can stand the test of time
00:30:12
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you, Clarissa. This is amazing. Thank you so much. And thank you, Christophe and Tim, for this great conversation on stent complexity in planted forests. i think we've all learned a lot. And thank you to our listeners for joining us.
00:30:27
Speaker
Look out for next Branching Out episode, where we'll explore health, safety and social dimensions of forest restoration operations, the topic of another EUFRO task force. us And if you want to know more about EUFRO, follow us on social media or click on the show notes.
00:30:42
Speaker
And until next time, goodbye.