Climate change mitigation-adaptation relationships in forest management: perspectives from the fire-prone American West

Minimizing negative impacts of climate change on human and natural systems requires mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and adaptation to new climate conditions. Forestry provides grounds to study the relationship between these two concepts: carbon flux and storage are ecosystem services of forests, while forests are growing increasingly vulnerable to climate-driven disturbances. We examined the practice and interplay of mitigation and adaptation in the American West, which is a testbed for the conceptual balance between carbon cycling and growing climate-related risk given its abundance of dry, fire-prone ecosystems. We sought to understand perceptions of mitigation and adaptation in this region through 38 semi-structured interviews with forest experts in the Rocky Mountains and Pacific Northwest. Our research questions explored (1) perceived mitigation and adaptation action options, (2) conflicts and synergies between mitigation and adaptation in forest management, and (3) factors influencing mitigation and adaptation activities. Our findings revealed the importance of geographic and ecological differences in determining an appropriate balance of mitigation and adaptation options and a need to further integrate intentional climate action in forestry. As the American West confronts the growing threat of intense and extensive wildfires, pest infestation, and other disturbances, many experts in this study called for more support to enable active management for adaptation while balancing multiple objectives, including carbon management. Through an inductive approach, we provide insight into forestry experts’ conceptualization of the mitigation-adaptation relationship, revealing implications for integrating climate-informed actions into forest management and the surrounding institutional environment.