Responding to Climate Change

Actively growing, healthy forests absorb carbon dioxide and convert it to stored carbon in the tree. A report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 concluded: “In the long term, a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fibre or energy from the forest, will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit.”

In 2015, we partnered with the Universities of Alberta and British Columbia in northeastern British Columbia to investigate how soil fungi can improve the regeneration of lodgepole pine following disturbances like wildfire or mountain pine beetle. With climate change, these disturbances are predicted to increase in frequency and severity, which can negatively impact the health of pine seedlings. The research team will examine how soil fungi communities can bolster the health and growth of pine seedlings, thus benefiting the health of our forests.