IEFC Annual Meeting 2023 - Roundtable
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ÉducationTranscription
00:00 [ Music ]
00:11 [ Inaudible ]
00:39 >> So we have people responsible for different kinds of risks at the table.
00:45 We have Martin Schwarz, we have Andrea Matisse, Emmanuel Lingo, and remind me,
00:53 I think it's Eric Buchard.
00:56 I don't know if I pronounced it correctly.
00:58 So we have fire, we have wind, we have diseases, and then we have plenty of them.
01:04 [ Inaudible ]
01:19 So I don't know who wants to go first.
01:25 The impact of risks on forest management.
01:29 Because, for example, in Portugal we've been saying for a long time that climate change can have an impact
01:36 and potentiate and aggravate the disturbances.
01:41 But, for example, in the case of the lemurs, that is the deformed lemur,
01:46 it seems to be not being as aggressive now with the climate change as we were expecting
01:52 because the insect is being also affected by the temperatures.
01:57 And so the impacts that we are observing in the last years are not as severe as we've been observing before.
02:05 [ Inaudible ]
02:29 And something that is quite important to understand is not only climate change, but it's also global change.
02:36 When we are in Europe, it's hard sometimes to discern the two risks we are facing,
02:44 the two dynamics, the current dynamics.
02:46 We have a change in the use of the land by the government of forest management.
02:52 We are increasing in forest cover, in all of the western Europe,
02:57 and now we are facing high disturbances, very short, eventually,
03:03 a little period of some disturbances, so the regime is changing because of climate change
03:09 and because of forest management.
03:11 This is something that we are starting to observe.
03:15 We were here in my little background, we had a little bit of a storm fire in the Alps,
03:20 and also in the morning we had a very nice slide from one speaker that said,
03:26 "From 60 to 120 years, the forest is more susceptible to wind and tropical."
03:33 Exactly this is the point that we are now in the Arctic.
03:36 We need to have more information about how we are growing right now,
03:42 and the point is which kind of species we will have in the future.
03:46 But going back to the positive information, to the direct question,
03:50 we are facing increasing risk for several reasons.
03:58 Species are not being able to concentrate on the new conditions.
04:05 We have some structures that are not able to prevent or mitigate some natural hazards
04:12 that in the past we didn't see, even on political forests,
04:16 the forest was able to stop the disturbance, and we are not prone to disturbance itself,
04:24 we are not susceptible to that kind of disturbance.
04:26 Young forests, old forests, now we have like overstocked forests,
04:32 very dense, starting to reach the more over-vegetative standard,
04:37 but still with very high density, not being in the pasture,
04:41 and this is really what is making our forests a bit higher.
04:46 In the future, I would say that the situation doesn't look so promising,
04:53 especially because the years are getting higher and higher,
04:58 so it's very hard to control the values, like for example wind temperature,
05:07 with the really high winds are very hard.
05:10 But we have a little advantage, a little, little, but it's an advantage,
05:14 that we can manage the fuel.
05:17 The contribution of the forest is how to manage the forest and reduce the fuel,
05:24 like wood, shrub, grassland, especially in the summer.
05:29 [INAUDIBLE]
05:58 But the variation of the rest is very wide,
06:02 and it's really easy to measure, you cannot generalize.
06:07 I mean, what could be good for a species in the northern latitude
06:12 can be different for another species in the southern latitude, as we showed.
06:17 So it's very difficult to have a general conclusion about the difference
06:21 between the two, for sure the overall trend is for an increase,
06:26 and that is demonstrated every year.
06:29 And the second point is the problem with exotic species introduced,
06:35 because that is a challenge that we can't talk about it now,
06:40 because the trend of the number of species that are introduced every year is known.
06:46 So we know that we need more exotic species coming from human trade,
06:51 because human trade is the reason for the production.
06:55 But of course in that function there is a very high level of uncertainty,
07:01 because we don't know which species will come next.
07:05 [INAUDIBLE]
07:10 So we looked at the trend of the dimension,
07:15 and we saw that in the 20th century it was more condensed than before,
07:22 more kind of irregular pattern, and what we saw in the last few years,
07:27 it was not surprising that the bark is taking over,
07:32 the treading that is from the storm,
07:36 the forest is taking over, and climate change is happening.
07:41 And it's quite difficult to disentangle both,
07:45 but I think the direction is pretty clear.
07:50 But I think partly what you said is also a solution,
07:55 that we can't use management to obtain the risk.
07:59 But I also know from my work that it takes a really long time to change
08:04 these species distributions and structures,
08:08 unless we get a new structure.
08:11 So yes, we can do something with the management,
08:15 and I think we should try to optimize and be prepared,
08:19 but also we will understand what will happen,
08:22 and I think we also should feel there's an opportunity,
08:25 because we need to change the forest and that's our plan,
08:29 and who knows what's the next plan.
08:32 So the other thing that we also found in the study is that it's really important
08:36 to monitor what is happening, and not only the things that you expect will happen,
08:41 but be prepared to monitor also things you don't know.
08:45 So speaking of plant and forests, do you see that the fact that we are dealing with plant and forests,
08:52 how many impact on the kind of species that use forests,
08:56 that makes those species susceptible or not?
08:59 So the relationship between the risks and the fact that we are dealing with plant and forests,
09:05 assuming that most of the plant and forests I am referring to are in an age of gene-based single species plant and forests.
09:13 And how do you link this with management?
09:16 Like Martin was saying, that we have the power to use management to make some changes,
09:21 so how do you think we could propose changes to reduce the impact of risks on the traditional plant and forests?
09:28 Well, as you know, if we are simplifying the system and working with plant and forests,
09:34 of course we are more susceptible to these kind of risks,
09:39 especially like also kind of change or extend the life of the species disease,
09:44 because we are working in a oversimplifying the system.
09:48 As I said before, of course, adding here in our rotation, we are more exposed to risks.
09:56 So longer the term of the rotation period, the longer is the exposure to risks.
10:01 So in plant and forests, we have very fast growing species,
10:05 on one side we are reducing this kind of risk,
10:07 on the other side we are suppressing also stability of the system and also resistance to wind,
10:14 like this kind of fast growing species.
10:17 I have to say that it's really something that is not too different from what we are doing,
10:23 like in the summer, perhaps, where our system is more land,
10:29 also nature, we are focusing on natural regeneration,
10:33 so we are no more almost the plant and trees than being the mountain forest,
10:38 but we rely on natural regeneration.
10:40 The whole thing about a meeting like this is we are sharing knowledge,
10:45 and we have to do that more and more, because as Christoph said,
10:49 things are changing very fast, and we have to be ready to adapt to that.
10:55 If somebody, we must keep knowledge to ourselves,
11:00 there are solutions in one country that can be applied to another country.
11:04 So it's wonderful to see people from all over the world here, sharing knowledge,
11:08 hopefully you've made good connections with each other,
11:11 and that exchange will happen over the next three years,
11:16 and we'll see fantastic papers in three years.
11:19 [Music]