Climate Change: Forest Biodiversity at the Crossroads of Conservation and Mitigation Issues

Abstract

Different strategies for carbon sequestration through the wood-forestry sector can be distinguished: those based on the desire to increase the carbon stock contained in forests and those based on the desire to rapidly export carbon from managed forests to other compartments of sustainable wood use such as wood energy or timber. Are these different sequestration strategies and their combination, aimed at increasing the carbon sink function of forests, favourable or antagonistic to biodiversity conservation? In this article, the authors take stock of the issue, exploring in detail the potential antagonisms and synergies between biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation.