Old-Growth Boreal Forests and the Carbon–Biodiversity Trade-off
Context: Boreal forests store globally significant carbon in living biomass, dead wood, peat, and mineral soils, while supporting species adapted to cold, disturbance-prone landscapes. Management debates often frame old-growth stands as a trade-off between carbon sequestration, timber supply, and biodiversity protection. Findings: Evidence indicates that old-growth boreal forests generally accumulate carbon more slowly than young regrowing stands, but they hold large, difficult-to-replace carbon stocks and provide habitat structures scarce in managed forests. Harvesting can create decades-long carbon debts, especially where soil carbon, dead wood, or peat are disturbed. Biodiversity benefits of old growth are strongest for species dependent on structural complexity, continuity, lichens, cavities, and dead wood. Implications: The apparent carbon-biodiversity trade-off is partly a time-scale problem. Protecting intact old-growth landscapes, while improving management in production forests, offers a risk-reducing strategy for climate mitigation and nature conservation.
Introduction
Old-growth boreal forests occupy a difficult position in environmental policy. They are not always the fastest forests for annual carbon uptake, yet they contain large accumulated carbon stocks and support ecological communities that can take centuries to develop [1], [2]. This creates an apparent carbon-biodiversity trade-off: should older stands be protected for habitat and stored carbon, or harvested and regenerated to promote faster tree growth, timber products, and possible substitution of more carbon-intensive materials?
The answer depends on what is being optimized, over what time horizon, and at what spatial scale. Boreal forests are shaped by fire, insects, wind,…
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