Improving the Contribution of Forests to CarbonNeutrality under Different Policies—A Case Study fromthe Hamburg Metropolitan Area

<p>As various political initiatives have set goals to reach net-zero emissions by<br />the mid-21st century, forests will play an important role as a carbon sink for sequestering<br />unavoidable emissions. Forest management can take two approaches<br />by either decreasing harvest and enlarging the forest carbon stock or increasing<br />harvest to increase carbon uptake of the remaining forest stock and create harvested<br />wood products (HWPs). Currently, these two management options seem<br />at odds with seemingly conflicting policy directives being written. We used the<br />BEKLIFUH model to assess six management scenarios based on carbon offset<br />potential taking into consideration forest carbon, HWPs and the material and<br />energetic substitution effects. The results show that while conservation leads<br />to a higher above-ground carbon pool, including HWPs, material and energetic<br />substitution leads to more overall carbon offsets for management scenarios with<br />more timber harvesting. With compromise being possible by selectively conserving<br />old growth forests with a high biodiversity value. In conclusion, if the<br />forest sector decouples GHG reporting from forest management and includes<br />all the secondary effects of timber harvest, this new approach can lead to a<br />different cost&#8211;benefit analysis for the choice between harvest vs. conservation.<br />This could result in a paradigm shift to a future where biodiversity and carbon<br />neutrality can coexist.</p>