Proforestation

Proforestation is the practice of protecting existing natural forests to foster continuous growth, carbon accumulation, and structural complexity. It is recognized as an important forest based strategy for addressing the global crises in climate and biodiversity. Forest restoration can be a strategy for climate change mitigation. Proforestation complements other forest-based solutions like afforestation, reforestation and improved forest management. Allowing proforestation in some secondary forests will increase their accumulated carbon and biodiversity over time. Strategies for proforestation include rewilding, such as reintroducing apex predators and keystone species as, for example, predators keep the population of herbivores in check (which reduce the biomass of vegetation). Another strategy is establishing wildlife corridors connecting isolated protected areas. Proforestation refers specifically to enabling continuous forest growth uninterrupted by active management or timber harvesting, a term coined by scientists William Moomaw, Susan Masino, and Edward Faison. Proforestation is a natural climate solution that addresses climate mitigation and adaptation by prioritizing natural processes and regeneration in existing forests to optimize cumulative carbon and ecological complexity. Proforestation seeks to strengthen and sustain complexity and carbon accumulation in forest ecosystems. As ecologist Ed Faison states, "forests provide these services incredibly well when left alone; in fact over time unmanipulated forests develop the greatest complexity and accumulated carbon storage and therefore serve as models for "ecological forestry" techniques. Proforestation differs from agroforestry or the cultivation of forest plantations, the latter consisting of similarly aged trees of just one or two species. Plantations can be an efficient source of wood but often come at the expense of natural forests and cultivate little habitat for biodiversity, such as dead and fallen trees or understory plants.