Climate-Smart Forestry in Mountain Regions

This book is one of the outputs of the COST Action CA15226, Climate-Smart Forestry in Mountain Regions (CLIMO). Funded by the EU's Horizon 2020 COST Action programme, CLIMO has been developing in the last few years as a new concept, which is central to the changes in the way forestry resources are used by the European community. While climate change is increasingly filling the policy agenda at global level, mountain regions are extremely vulnerable to its effects. Because climate change increases the frequency and intensity of ecosystem imbalances, the economic value and adaptive capacity of these regions is jeopardised, which has led to a call for changes in forestry polices and management.

Initiated in October of 2016 and finished in April of 2021, CLIMO addressed the complex issue of forest management, which plans for the long term, while dealing with uncertainties related to the productivity and health of forest ecosystems, and their adaptation to short-term environmental changes. The establishment of this net- work, which mobilized more than two hundred researchers from 28 countries, focused on mountain environments, considered as a climate change hotspot. Given the growing pressure on mountain regions by climate change, there is a need to emphasise forest production systems that are resilient to climate-driven disturbances. These climate targets can be mainstreamed through multidisciplinary Climate-Smart Forestry, paying attention to regional circumstances, opportunities and challenges. This multidisciplinary approach, from tree to landscape and with a variety of tools, was made possible through networking and stakeholders' engagement.