Climate adaptation strategies for forests

When creating a stewardship plan for your land, you are managing your woodlands not only in their current state but for their future state as well. The concept of managing forests of the future is not new in the world of forestry. The specific methods that we use to manage future forests have become more relevant as forest stewards shift their focus to climate-informed forest management.

There are many climate adaptation tools that you can use to manage forests for future climate. The approach that you choose will depend on your desired future conditions for the land as defined by your goals, objectives and values.  

Depending on the desired future condition, climate adaptation approaches fall somewhere on the spectrum between resistance, resilience and transition. This spectrum can help you decide how to manage your forests in the short- and long-term with climate change while meeting your goals and objectives.

Resistance

In resistance-focused management approaches, the desired future condition is the same as the current condition of the forest. Management actions under a resistance-focused approach aim to avoid any future changes to the forest. 

This approach can be most effective in the short term, but in the long term, the resources required and the level of risk associated with maintaining current conditions increase as the climate continues to shift.

Examples of resistance-focused management actions: 

• Thinning your woodland to reduce competition, drought stress, and insect activity.
• Removing ladder fuels, such as understory balsam fir, to prevent canopy fires.
• Protecting and creating cavity trees and refuge areas for wildlife, particularly for endangered and threatened species (for example, roost trees for the endangered northern long-eared bat).

Resilience

With a resilience-focused approach, the future forest may look similar to current conditions, but some change is accepted. When a disturbance occurs, a resilient forest may experience some change but will return to near-prior conditions through management actions or natural means. Resilience involves improving functional redundancy — which is when there are multiple species to fill a function in an ecosystem — so that the forest can recover from a disturbance and tolerate a wider range of conditions. Risk may increase over time if there is more change than what the ecosystem is able to tolerate.

Examples of resilience-focused management actions: 

• Increasing diversity in terms of species, age, structure and genetics to maintain functional redundancy. 
• Favoring species in their native range that are predicted to respond well to future climates. 
• Managing the risk of major disturbances by removing ladder fuels, reducing competition through thinning, and controlling infection by diseases and pests.

Transition

Transition-focused approaches involve managing for a desired future condition that looks different than current conditions. Management actions include facilitating change and improving the ability of the forest to respond and adapt to changes in the climate and future disturbances. These approaches anticipate future changes in the climate and facilitate the transformation of the current forest into a new forest type to accommodate the anticipated changes. 

Risks with transition strategies may be higher in the beginning when planting new species, but the level of risk decreases as the climate changes over time and the ecosystem adapts.

Examples of transition-focused management actions:

• Facilitating the growth of native species out of their historic range based on their predicted future range with climate change (such as planting northern red oak in northeastern Minnesota).
• Planting a new species (like swamp white oak) to replace a species that is predicted to be lost to disturbance (such as black ash due to emerald ash borer). 
• Planting a mix of species that are predicted to respond well to future climates. 

Assisted migration

Assisted migration involves moving species that are predicted to perform well in a future climate to new locations based on their predicted future range. Assisted migration is only one of many climate adaptation approaches that natural resource managers can use to manage forests for long-term health and productivity under a changing climate.

Assisted migration is a great option for folks who have more flexibility to experiment with planting trees. If you can dedicate extra care to the assisted migration species you plant, monitor how well they perform during our cold winters and stormy summers, and manage those trees appropriately, they will provide additional diversity and resilience to your woodland. 

See our tree planting guide, geared toward planting in yards. Forest trees are not typically staked, mulched and watered, but they commonly need tree tubes or fencing to protect them from wildlife, including deer and rabbits. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources also has a woodlot tree planting guide. 

We recommend that you work with a forester or another natural resource professional to determine if implementing assisted migration strategies is the best option for your land and goals. The USDA Forest Service has a helpful article if you want to learn more about assisted migration.