Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America.
Graduate Program on the Environment, Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2020 Apr 2;15(4):e0230525. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0230525. eCollection 2020.
Conserving forests to provide ecosystem services and biodiversity will be a key environmental challenge as society strives to adapt to climate change. The ecosystem services and biodiversity that forests provide will be influenced by the behaviors of numerous individual private landowners as they alter their use of forests in response to climate change and any future carbon pricing policies that emerge. We evaluated the impact of forest landowners' likely adaptation behaviors on potential habitat for 35 terrestrial, forest-dependent vertebrates across three U.S. Pacific states. In particular, we couple a previously estimated empirical-economic model of forest management with spatially explicit species' range and habitat associations to quantify the effects of adaptation to climate change and carbon pricing on potential habitat for our focal species (amphibians, birds and mammals) drawn from state agency lists of species of conservation concern. We show that both climate change and carbon pricing policies would likely encourage adaptation away from currently prevalent coniferous forest types, such as Douglas-fir, largely through harvest and planting decisions. This would reduce potential habitat for a majority of the focal species we studied across all three vertebrate taxa. The total anticipated habitat loss for amphibians, birds and mammals considered species of state concern would exceed total habitat gained, and the net loss in habitat per decade would accelerate over time. Carbon payments to forest landowners likely would lead to unintended localized habitat losses especially in Douglas-fir dominant forest types, and encourage more hardwoods on private forest lands. Our study highlights potential tradeoffs that could arise from pricing one ecosystem service (e.g., carbon) while leaving others (e.g., wildlife habitat) unpriced. Our study demonstrates the importance of anticipating potential changes in ecosystem services and biodiversity resulting from forest landowners' climate adaptation behavior and accounting for a broader set of environmental benefits and costs when designing policies to address climate change.
保护森林以提供生态系统服务和生物多样性将是社会努力适应气候变化的一个关键环境挑战。森林提供的生态系统服务和生物多样性将受到众多私人土地所有者行为的影响，因为他们会根据气候变化和未来任何出现的碳定价政策改变对森林的使用。我们评估了森林所有者可能的适应行为对 35 种美国太平洋三州的陆地、依赖森林的脊椎动物潜在栖息地的影响。特别是，我们将以前估计的森林管理经验经济模型与物种范围和栖息地关联的空间显式相结合，以量化适应气候变化和碳定价对我们关注物种（两栖动物、鸟类和哺乳动物）潜在栖息地的影响，这些物种是从州机构列出的保护关注物种中提取的。我们表明，气候变化和碳定价政策都可能鼓励人们从目前普遍存在的针叶林类型（如道格拉斯冷杉）中适应，主要是通过采伐和种植决策。这将减少我们研究的所有 3 种脊椎动物中大多数重点物种的潜在栖息地。考虑到州内关注的物种，预计两栖动物、鸟类和哺乳动物的总预期栖息地损失将超过总获得的栖息地，并且每十年的净损失将随着时间的推移而加速。向森林所有者支付碳款可能会导致意外的局部栖息地丧失，特别是在道格拉斯冷杉占主导地位的森林类型中，并鼓励在私人林地种植更多硬木。我们的研究强调了对一种生态系统服务（例如碳）进行定价而对其他服务（例如野生动物栖息地）不进行定价可能带来的潜在权衡。我们的研究表明，在设计应对气候变化的政策时，预期森林所有者的气候适应行为对生态系统服务和生物多样性的潜在变化，并考虑更广泛的环境效益和成本是非常重要的。
