Int'l conference on climate change kicks off in Bulgaria

An international scientific conference about the impact of climate change on forest ecosystems, adaptation strategies and mitigation kicked off here on Thursday bringing together 147 participants from 30 countries.

"Recent studies have shown that due to many circumstances such as climate change, social and economic factors, forestry is becoming very important for the environment and human," Prof. Veselin Brezin, rector of the University of Forestry in Sofia and chairman of the event's organizing committee, said addressing the event.

Air pollution, soil degradation, desertification and deforestation are intricately intertwined with and all contribute to climate change, necessitating a comprehensive approach to a solution, Brezin said.

According to Dr. Marcus Lindner of the European Forest Institute, climate change scenarios remain uncertain and this is unlikely to change anytime soon.

"Impact assessments contain simplifications, but our system understanding is improving and it is important to make the right interpretations of uncertainties," Lindner said in his keynote speech.

The challenge for forest management is how to consider the trends and uncertainties in adaptive forest management, he said. Policy making should help foresters to get access to up-to-date information and educate them how to plan with uncertainties, Lindner added.

Dr. Jean-Luc Peyron, managing director of ECOFOR, a French federative platform on forest ecosystems, spoke about the adaptation and mitigation of climate change. Incentives should be focused towards an adapted species mix, Peyron said.

Risks should be balanced with carbon storage, he said. Substitution and sequestration should also be balanced, as well as long and short term, he added.

During the conference, titled "Forestry: Bridge to the Future," researchers will give 126 presentations during the two-day plenary sessions ending on Friday. Endit