Using Scenarios for Forest Adaptation to Climate Change: a Foresight Study of the Landes De Gascogne Forest 2050
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Using scenarios for forest adaptation to climate change: a foresight study of the Landes de Gascogne Forest 2050 Olivier Mora, Vincent Banos, Margot Regolini, Jean-Michel Carnus To cite this version: Olivier Mora, Vincent Banos, Margot Regolini, Jean-Michel Carnus. Using scenarios for forest adap- tation to climate change: a foresight study of the Landes de Gascogne Forest 2050. Annals of Forest Science, Springer Nature (since 2011)/EDP Science (until 2010), 2014, 71 (3), pp.313-324. 10.1007/s13595-013-0336-2. hal-01101529 HAL Id: hal-01101529 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01101529 Submitted on 8 Jan 2015 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Copyright Annals of Forest Science (2014) 71:313–324 DOI 10.1007/s13595-013-0336-2 LETTER TO THE EDITOR Using scenarios for forest adaptation to climate change: a foresight study of the Landes de Gascogne Forest 2050 Olivier Mora & Vincent Banos & Margot Regolini & Jean-Michel Carnus Received: 12 August 2013 /Accepted: 1 October 2013 /Published online: 14 November 2013 # INRA and Springer-Verlag France 2013 Keywords Adaptation . Scenarios . Climate change . Forest andaroundtheworld(FAO2012). A critical aspect of any planning . Wood sector . Regional scale . Biodiversity . adaptation (and mitigation) strategy is to ensure that Landes de Gascogne management choices have sufficient flexibility and are consistent with sustainable forest management (SFM) principles that balance the forest’s social, ecological and 1 Introduction economic outputs. Most current studies, however, still tend to consider forest adaptation independently of exogenous To ensure that forest ecosystem services will be maintained in developments (Seppälä et al. 2009), or are based on forecasting future climate conditions, the challenge of developing and and thus only extrapolate from current trends. Yetthe futures of implementing forest adaptation strategies has become a forest systems are also uncertain because change may come priority shared across Europe (European Commission 2010) mainly from socio-economic, and not ecological, drivers (Schoene and Bernier 2012). Climate change will, moreover, have a highly uncertain effect on socio-ecological systems Handling Editor: Marc Hanewinkel such as forests. A number of authors and international Contribution of the co-authors OM, VB and MR have conducted the publications on the environment have posited that scenarios fieldwork, analysed the data and written the manuscript with the studies offer a framework for dealing with strong uncertainties cooperation of JMC. OM and JMC have coordinated the “Landes de and the complexity of socio-ecological systems: “Comparisons Gascogne Forest 2050” foresight study. among a set of contrasting scenarios are used to understand the O. Mora (*) systemic interrelation and dynamics of complex socio- INRA, Delegation for scientific expertise, foresight and advanced ecological systems and to define a range of possibilities and ’ studies (DEPE), 147 rue de l université, 75338 uncertainties in quantitative and qualitative terms” (Thompson Paris Cedex 07, France e-mail: [email protected] et al. 2012). Likewise, SFM practices are beginning to underscore the importance of taking into account landscape- V. Banos level views of the forest, and of the many exogenous drivers of National Research Institute of Science and Technology for regional change, when thinking about integrated land use Environment and Agriculture (IRSTEA), Amenities and Dynamics of Rural Areas research unit (UR ADBX), 50 avenue de Verdun, (Schoene and Bernier 2012). Adaptation strategies must 33612 Cestas Cedex, France therefore move away from single technical solutions and must not rely on one-size-fits-all mechanisms. New modes of M. Regolini governance that enable rapidly accelerating social, economic European Forest Institute—INRA, Joint Research Unit for Biodiversity, Genes and Communities (UMR BIOGECO), 69 Route and institutional changes are required (Seppälä et al. 2009). d’Arcachon, Pierroton, 33612 Cestas Cedex, France Recent emphasis has also been placed on the importance of implementing regionally based forest adaptation strategies that < J. M. Carnus are accepted by local stakeholders (Spathelf et al. 2013). A INRA, Forest, Grassland and Freshwater Ecology Department (EFPA), Bordeaux-Aquitaine Research Centre, 69 Route scenario planning approach that engages stakeholders in d’Arcachon, Pierroton, 33610 Cestas, France scenario development could be a way to overcome such 314 O. Mora et al. challenges by combining anticipatory learning of climate underlying the current transformation of the LGF. The paper change impacts (Tschakert and Dietrich 2010) with land use concludes by describing the different scenarios and discussing planning. Thus, forest adaptation could be seen from a some of the results with regard to strategies of forest perspective of forest planning rather than of forest management. adaptation to climate change. It could involve a more indirect form of management that is broader in scale in terms of time, space and organisational level (Mermet and Farcy 2011). 2 Method: using scenario planning for elaborating forest The objective of this paper is to discuss how a foresight adaptation strategies approach and scenario planning can offer an appropriate framework for dealing with climate change uncertainties at In scenario planning, a scenario is defined as a structured local level, and for elaborating a plurality of forest adaptation description of how the future may unfold, based on a coherent strategies derived from plausible sectoral, socio-ecological and internally consistent set of assumptions about key driving and regional changes. To test this assumption, the Landes de forces and their relationships (Henrichs et al. 2010). Scenario Gascogne Forest (LGF) 2050 case study (Mora et al. 2012) planning calls for the subject to be studied systemically and appears particularly interesting, due both to recent storm for forward-looking assessments to be holistic. There are damage in 1999 and 2009 and because of the increasing, generally three types of scenarios: normative, exploratory diverse demands in changing economic and social conditions and business-as-usual (Rounsevell and Metzger 2010). for various forest ecosystem goods and services. The Landes Normative scenarios may be referred to as “prescriptive” or region of south-western France is located at the intersection of “anticipatory” scenarios. They start with a defined vision of Northern Europe and the Iberian Peninsula. It covers a surface the future and backcast to determine the conditions that will area of about 15,000 km2. The major biophysical features of lead thereto. Business-as-usual scenarios, also called the area include temperate, oceanic climate conditions, “baseline”, “reference”,or“predictive” scenarios, look at podzolic sandy soils and shallow groundwater levels. The well-known trends to extrapolate what will happen. LGF, which was expanded in the nineteenth century to Exploratory scenarios, such as those used in this study, become the largest cultivated and privately owned (92 %) attempt to map future possibilities foreseeable in the light of forest in Europe, is primarily composed of maritime pine currently observable trends and dynamics, taking a broad (Pinus pinaster). The LGF covers two thirds of the Landes range of factors into account. By exploring “weak signals” de Gascogne region, with agricultural and built-up land and “early warnings” of change, exploratory scenarios are representing 18 and 7 %, respectively (Mora et al. 2012). able to develop alternative visions of a situation. Their role The forest also has a significant economic impact through its is to stimulate discussion about possible futures. forestry and forest-based industries. A unique aspect of the In response to climate change, scenarios are now being used to Landes forest-wood chain is the location of both timber anticipate possible futures for complex systems (Carpenter processing stages within the region and its largely exclusive et al. 2006) that involve interactions between biotic and use of local maritime pine wood resources. However, the abiotic processes and socio-economic trends (Berkhout et al. forestry and forest-based sector have faced difficulties since 2002), and also to improve stakeholders and communities the Martin and Klaus storms in 1999 and 2009 that created capacities in terms of anticipation and resilience. In high- approximately 70 million cubic metres of windthrow damage. vulnerability situations (Tschakert and Dietrich 2010), The forestry sector is also experiencing structural challenges scenarios thus act as learning process tools to coproduce as synergies among industry subsectors weaken and knowledge. Shaw et al. report that “including participants biorefinery activities gain prominence. Bordered by the from different stakeholder groups in the scenario development Atlantic Ocean to the west and the large urban centres of expanded the information that was included at the