Restoring forest cover at diverse sites across Canada can balance synergies and trade-offs

Forests Canada Chief Operating Officer Elizabeth Jarrett and Director of Restoration Programs Val Deziel are co-authors on this informative research paper outlining the impacts of restoring forest cover across Canada.

Brief
Restoring forests can provide cost-effective mitigation of climate change alongside many co-benefits for people and nature. Large-scale policy commitments to restore forests, such as Canada’s 2 Billion Trees program, have multiple goals that can be hard to achieve all in the same place. A portfolio approach is most likely to provide the highest collective benefit, with different benefits targeted at different sites. Many areas of high tree growth overlap with high densities of species in peril, indicating an opportunity for restored forests to simultaneously achieve climate and biodiversity goals.