Advancing climate-smart forestry with an interactive decision-support tool that incorporates the preferences of private forest owners

Abstract

We explored the potential of interactive multiobjective optimization for climate-smart forest management planning in privately owned forests. Through workshops with two groups of four forest owners each in Eastern Finland, we evaluated the influence of management preferences, information on climate-smart forestry practices, and monetary compensation on their decision-making process in a 20-year planning period. An interactive decision support tool enabled the analysis of trade-offs among different objectives and finding solutions that reflected the preferences of forest owners. In both groups, when informed of climate-smart forestry, the forest owners increased the amount of carbon stored in their forests compared to the initial planning stage, where carbon was not included as an objective. Interestingly, the approach of providing information increased carbon storage more than what could be achieved later by monetary compensation. Although these are preliminary findings, they may provide valuable insights for future research and practical applications in improving the climate-smartness of forestry. Practical recommendations: 1. Promote research and piloting towards information-based nudging. 2. Understand forest owners’ behavioral motivations in strategic planning and policy-making. 3. Distinguish between short-term and long-term effects in carbon compensation. 4. Deploy interactive decision support tools that enable multiobjective optimization.