Climate change and Australian production forests: impacts and adaptation

ABSTRACT

Australia has a highly diverse and variable climate and its forests evolved under a relatively high level of climatic variation. However, human-induced changes in climate are likely to exceed historical ranges of variability and rates of change, and have effects on forests well beyond the experience of forest managers. These conditions will require implementation of management practices appropriate to a changing climate. This paper provides an overview of the potential changes in climate in key forest-growing regions; current knowledge of the impacts of climate change on Australian forests, forest industries and forest-dependent communities; adaptation options; and approaches to potential climate change challenges. Developments in understanding are considered, and information gaps, research needs and policy changes required to support adaptation are discussed. In order to adapt well to a rapidly changing climate, forest managers will need to better understand how global climate change will impact on the local environment where their resources, assets and people are located, and consider their key vulnerabilities and how climate might affect their wider supply chains, inputs, customers and competitors. Improved monitoring can provide clear signals of change. New tools are required that integrate climate scenarios into organisational and business planning. Industry leaders will need to encourage experimentation, adopt greater flexibility in raw material supply sources, in species and genetic selection, and in plantation and native forest management practices, and have strategies in place to adapt quickly during periods of rapid change.

KEYWORDS:

• forests
• climate change
• impacts
• management
• adaptation
• organisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.