Sustainable forest biomass: a review of current residue harvesting guidelines

Energy, Sustainability and Society

Viktor J. Bruckman¹  Karen Hogg²  Kevin Brown³  Brian D. Titus⁴  Pam Reece⁵  Heljä-Sisko Helmisaari⁶  Keizo Hirai⁷  Inge Stupak⁸  Lilli Kaarakka⁹  Elena Vanguelova^1,10  Alexander Evans^1,11  Kęstutis Armolaitis^1,12  Iveta Varnagiryte-Kabasinskiene^1,12  Nicholas Clarke^1,13  Claudia Guidi^1,14  Wim de Vries^1,15 

[1] Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), Commission for Interdisciplinary Ecological Studies (KIOES), 1010, Vienna, Austria;Canadian Forest Service, Pacific Forestry Centre, Natural Resources Canada, 506 West Burnside Rd, V8Z 1M5, Victoria, BC, Canada;Canadian Forest Service, Pacific Forestry Centre, Natural Resources Canada, 506 West Burnside Rd, V8Z 1M5, Victoria, BC, Canada;K.R. Brown and Associates, 4043 Zinnia Rd, V8Z 4W2, Victoria, BC, Canada;Canadian Forest Service, Pacific Forestry Centre, Natural Resources Canada, 506 West Burnside Rd, V8Z 1M5, Victoria, BC, Canada;Retired and now Visiting Scientist at Pacific Forestry Centre, V8Z 1M5, Victoria, BC, Canada;Canadian Forest Service, Pacific Forestry Centre, Natural Resources Canada, 506 West Burnside Rd, V8Z 1M5, Victoria, BC, Canada;Stantec, 11-2042 Mills Road, V8L 5X4, Sidney, BC, Canada;Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki, PO Box 27, 00014, Helsinki, Finland;Department of Forest Soils, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, 305-8687, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan;Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Rolighedsvej 23, 1958, Frederiksberg C, Copenhagen, Denmark;Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Science, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA, USA;Forest Research, Alice Holt Lodge, GU10 4LH, Farnham, Surrey, UK;Forest Stewards Guild, 2019 Galisteo Street, Suite N7, 87505, Santa Fe, NM, USA;Institute of Forestry, Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, Liepų 1, Girionys, LT-53101, Kaunas, Lithuania;Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, P.O. Box 115, N-1431 Ås, Viken, Norway;Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, 8903, Birmensdorf, Switzerland;Wageningen University and Research, Environmental Systems Analysis Group, PO Box 47, 6700AA, Wageningen, The Netherlands;

关键词: Forest biomass;    Harvesting residue removal;    Guidelines;    Governance;    Sustainability;    Biodiversity;    Soil;    Water;    Carbon;    Review;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s13705-021-00281-w

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

Forest biomass harvesting guidelines help ensure the ecological sustainability of forest residue harvesting for bioenergy and bioproducts, and hence contribute to social license for a growing bioeconomy. Guidelines, typically voluntary, provide a means to achieve outcomes often required by legislation, and must address needs related to local or regional context, jurisdictional compatibility with regulations, issues of temporal and spatial scale, and incorporation of appropriate scientific information. Given this complexity, comprehensive reviews of existing guidelines can aid in development of new guidelines or revision of existing ones. We reviewed 32 guidelines covering 43 jurisdictions in the USA, Canada, Europe and East Asia to expand upon information evaluated and recommendations provided in previous guideline reviews, and compiled a searchable spreadsheet of direct quotations from documents as a foundation for our review. Guidelines were considered in the context of sustainable forest management (SFM), focusing on guideline scope and objectives, environmental sustainability concerns (soils, site productivity, biodiversity, water and carbon) and social concerns (visual aesthetics, recreation, and preservation of cultural, historical and archaeological sites). We discuss the role of guidelines within the context of other governance mechanisms such as SFM policies, trade regulations and non-state market-driven (NSMD) standards, including certification systems. The review provides a comprehensive resource for those developing guidelines, or defining sustainability standards for market access or compliance with public regulations, and/or concerned about the sustainability of forest biomass harvesting. We recommend that those developing or updating guidelines consider (i) the importance of well-defined and understood terminology, consistent where possible with guidelines in other jurisdictions or regions; (ii) guidance based on locally relevant research, and periodically updated to incorporate current knowledge and operational experience; (iii) use of indicators of sensitive soils, sites, and stands which are relevant to ecological processes and can be applied operationally; and (iv) incorporation of climate impacts, long-term soil carbon storage, and general carbon balance considerations when defining sustainable forest biomass availability. Successful implementation of guidelines depends both on the relevance of the information and on the process used to develop and communicate it; hence, appropriate stakeholders should be involved early in guideline development.

【 授权许可】

CC BY