Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation in Forestry: Responses by Trees and Markets

©1999–2004 CHOICES. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced or electronically distributed as long as attribution to Choices and the American Agricultural Economics Association is maintained. Choices subscriptions are free and can be obtained through http://www.choicesmagazine.org. The forest sector—forestry and forest industries— plays an important role in the global climate change debate. The sector influences the global carbon cycle through the sequestration of atmospheric carbon in forests and is in turn influenced by global climate change through its impacts on the rates of forest growth and climateinduced changes in natural disturbances such as fire. Similar to agriculture, the effects of climate variability and change on forests and forest industries were examined in the US National Assessment (Joyce et al., 2001). Climate change may alter the productivity of forests, shifting resource management, economic processes of adaptation, and ultimately forest product harvests both nationally and regionally. In regions where climate change reduces timber growth, smaller timber volumes will be available for harvest in both existing forest stands and in those regenerated in the future. The reverse would be true in regions experiencing increased timber growth. In addition, differential impacts of climate change in forestry and agriculture could lead to land use shifts as one possible adaptation strategy. For example, if climate change results in relatively higher agricultural productivity per acre, some acres may be converted from forests to agricultural use. Such changes would alter the supply of products to national and international markets, changing the prices of forest products and the economic well-being of both consumers and producers. Consumers, in turn, would shift their patterns of consumption between forest and nonforest products. Producers would change both the types of management they practice (planting, thinning, and other cultural treatments) and the ages at which they harvest trees, depending on the type of owner (private or public). This paper reviews key results for the forest sector highlighted in the US National Assessment (Joyce et al., 2001). The analysis described in this paper was conducted with the same model as was used in the agricultural analysis described in the Reilly article in this issue of Choices. During the National Assessment, a joint forestry and agriculture climate impact scenario was conducted; in this paper, we focus on the forestry results from that scenario. The results for the agricultural sector are qualitatively similar to those reported in the Reilly article.