French forests are currently at a crossroads. Ever since the 2007 Grenelle Environment Forum, France, like many European countries, has allowed industrial wood energy projects to proliferate. Now the urgent need to deal with the climate crisis is being used as a pretext for promoting intensified forest management. Whole trees are being processed into pellets instead of being left to absorb more carbon dioxide or used as a long-term material for sustainable construction.
Forests will play a key role in mitigating the worst effects of the climate crisis. This report explores a different approach: leaving 25 per cent of the forest to evolve naturally, lengthening rotation times and practising continuous cover forestry.
Letting trees age is not only an effective climate change mitigation strategy, but also the best way to preserve soil fertility, restore biodiversity and give new impetus to the forestry and wood professions.
This is a summary report to the Forest Management and Climate Change: a new approach to the French mitigation strategy.