Climate constraints on forests

Based on recent evidence, we discuss future environmental changes and present a summary of the approaches developed to understand and precise their impact on ecosystem services. We present an updated synthesis of the predictions produced by researchers about the effects of foreseen environmental changes on forest functions and discuss about their implication for the sustainability of ecosystem services produced by forests. We examine the possibility that forests do adapt to the ongoing environmental changes, and hypothesise that maintaining environmental services at local and global first requires the maintenance and even the extension of forested areas with their ability to store carbon, and to substitute the use of carbon from fossil fuels. Given the known adaptability of forests and its limits, we believe that, to enable a sustainable management of forests, a priority measure to be taken would be a drastic reduction of emissions tending towards a full stop of the use of fossil carbon and of the anthropic impact on climate. The forest-wood-energy sector would play a major role in the development of such a policy. (author)