Forests and Climate Change: Introduction to a special section

This paper provides an overview of papers presented for a special section of the journal on Forests and Climate Change. A number of these papers were presented at the XXIV IUFRO World Congress in Salt Lake City, USA in October 2014. The papers in this section indicate the value of scientific tools in supporting forest decision makers in adapting to climate change. These need to be strongly embedded in science-practice partnerships to build common understanding on the nature of future climate change and its potential impacts on forests and forest dependent communities. These partnerships can occur through formalised boundary organisations or more ad-hoc facilitated workshops. Boundary activities can link scientific understanding of the global climate system to understanding of the impact of different types of climate and weather events at a local scale. They need to include relevant policy makers because current policies and institutional arrangements can be significant barriers to adaptation. Forest policies and forest management objectives may need to change to reflect the effects of a changing climate on forest productivity. Developing forest management options that work for both mitigating and adapting to climate change will be important for small-scale subsistence forest users and for larger communities and forest-based industries.