At the June meeting of the Forests and Wildlife Stewards, representatives from the Minnesota Forests Resources Council (MFRC) presented information on how various practices in Minnesota’s forests relate to climate change. The council includes many competing interests: commercial loggers, the lumber/wood products industry, governmental departments, a tribal representative, and environmentalists; its role is to advise on “sustainable development” practices in Minnesota forests.
The MFRC is using Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) to evaluate all of the energy inputs, emissions, and gains of a technology compared to a baseline so that different processes can be compared regarding their effects in mitigating climate change.
At the meeting, the MFRC also reported on the use of different silviculture practices to increase the resilience of forests to climate change. MFRC will use LCAs to analyze harvest practices such as selective cutting, thinning, and clearcutting and assess their contribution to forest resiliency. Selective cutting or thinning, for example, might use more energy, but produce more storage of carbon than other harvest methods. The results of the LCA studies will provide science-based options for forest managers.
The Forests and Wildlife Stewards team will continue monitoring this issue and interacting with the MFRC to determine best methods for using forests as natural solutions for mitigating climate change.