Does Aiming for Long-Term Non-Decreasing Flow of Timber Secure Carbon Accumulation: A Lithuanian Forestry Case

Adaptive Relationships in Hemi-Boreal Forests: Tree Species Responses to Competition, Stress, and Disturbance

European Union forest policy calls for closer-to-nature forest management, but natural disturbances and forest succession are ecological phenomena that are difficult to characterize and integrate into sustainable forest management practices. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the adaptive properties of Lithuania's hemi-boreal forest ecosystems. To accomplish this, we first reviewed (i) the potential natural forest communities, (ii) the successional dynamics, and (iii) adaptive strategies of forest trees, and second, we synthesised the adaptive relationships using these three reviews. The results firstly identified that Lithuania's potential natural forests are broadly divided into two climatically based zonal formations: (i) mesophytic and hygromesophytic coniferous and broadleaved forests and (ii) mesophytic deciduous broadleaved and coniferous-broadleaved forests. Secondly, the review of successional dynamics showed that each tree species can be categorised into various end communities and plant functional groups. Using the differences in tree establishment and phenological development modes we identified four forest dynamic types of tree adaptive strategies: stress-resistant ruderals, competitive stress-sensitive ruderals, ruderal stress-sensitive competitors, and stress-resistant competitors. Such functional redundancy leads to a variety of tree responses to competition, stress, and disturbance, which reduces the risk of loss of forest ecosystem functioning. Finally, the synthesised review on the adaptive relationships of each forest tree community shows both the niche position of each hemi-boreal forest tree species and how they should be managed in the organization of plant communities. We believe that this research can serve as a guide for future relevant research and the development of appropriate methods for sustainable forest management.

Trading wood for water and carbon in peatland forests? Rewetting is worth more than wood production

While traditional forest management systems aim at maximizing timber production, sustainable forest management focuses on the multiple benefits of entire forest landscapes. The latter is now at the top of policy agendas. This calls for learning through evaluation to support the implementation of policies aiming towards multi-functional forest landscapes. The aim of this study is to quantify the economic trade-offs among natural, current, and re-wetted peatland forests using seven indicators, viz. drainage maintenance, rewetting, water retention, wood production, and three types of carbon sequestration as economic indicators. We discuss ways to adapt to and mitigate effect of forest draining on climate change toward securing multi-functional forest landscapes. The cost benefit analysis showed that in a potential natural state, Lithuania's peatland forests would deliver an economic benefit of ∼€176.1 million annually. In contrast, compared to natural peatland forests, the drainage of peatland forests for wood production has caused a loss of ∼€309 million annually. In comparison, peatland forest rewetting is estimated to increase the economic value by ∼€170 million annually. This study shows that satisfying different ecosystem services is a balancing act, and that a focus on wood production has resulted in net losses when foregone values of water storage and carbon sequestration are considered. Valuation of different sets of ecosystems service benefits and disservices must be assessed, and can be used as a tool towards creating, implementing and monitoring consequences of policies on both sustainability and biodiversity.

Spatiotemporal Patterns of Land-Use Changes in Lithuania

The spatially explicit assessment of land use and land-use change patterns can identify critical areas and provide insights to improve land management policies and associated decisions. This study mapped the land uses and land-use changes in Lithuanian municipalities since 1971. Additionally, an analysis was conducted of three shorter periods, corresponding to major national land-use policy epochs. Data on land uses, available from the Lithuanian National Forest Inventory (NFI) and collected on an annual basis with the primary objective of conducting greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting and reporting for the land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF) sectors, were explored. The overall trend in Lithuania during the last five decades has been an increase in the area of forest and built-up land and decrease in the area of producing land, meadow/pasture, wetlands, and other land uses. Nevertheless, the development trends for the proportions of producing land and meadow/pasture changed trajectories several times, and the breakpoints were linked with important dates in Lithuanian history and associated with the reorganization of land management and land-use relations. Global Moran’s I statistic and Anselin Local Moran’s I were used to check for global and local patterns in the distribution of land use in Lithuanian municipalities. The proportions of producing land and pasture/meadow remained spatially autocorrelated during the whole period analysed. Local spatial clusters and outliers were identified for all land-use types used in GHG inventories in the LULUCF sector at all the time points analysed. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was used to explain the land-use change trends during several historical periods due to differing land management policies, utilizing data from freely available databases as the regressors. The percentage of variance explained by the models ranged from 37 to 65, depending on the land-use type and the period in question.