Combining Thinning & Diverse Plantings to Adapt to Climate Change-Induced Timber Supply Shortages

About this Presentation

British Columbia’s forest sector faces mounting challenges due to climate change, past disturbances, and an impending mid-term timber supply shortage. While commercial thinning is a well-established silvicultural tool at the stand scale, its effectiveness at the landscape level—especially under a changing climate—remains uncertain. This study explores whether thinning can help mitigate timber shortages and how it interacts with multi-species planting strategies aimed at increasing long-term forest resilience. Using a forest estate modeling framework, we simulated thinning and planting scenarios over a 250-year horizon, assessing their impact on future timber supply. Results indicate that thinning can smooth short-term supply fluctuations but does not fully prevent longer-term shortages. Meanwhile, multi-species planting appears beneficial in models—but some projected gains may be exaggerated due to modeling assumptions. This raises critical questions: How do we validate these findings in real-world forests? What new modeling approaches—such as agent-based simulation or game-theoretic analysis—could provide fresh insights? And how can practitioners and researchers collaborate to test these strategies in the field? This seminar will explore these findings, invite critical discussion, and identify next steps for research, policy, and practical application in managing BC’s forests under increasing uncertainty.

About Dr. Gregory Paradis

Gregory is Assistant Professor of Forest Management in the Department of Forest Resources Management (Faculty of Forestry) at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where he leads the Forest Resources and Ecosystem Services Hub (FRESH) lab. His research spans a wide range of forest management problems, with a common thread being the application of operations research (OR) methods to formulate and solve mathematical programming representations of complex decision problems. He uses a systems approach to modelling interactions between ecosystems, industrial supply chains, governments, and society. His research interests lie at the intersection of forest science, forest economics, forest and industrial engineering, data science, computer science, and operations research. In addition to his academic credentials, Gregory has over two decades of professional experience working with the forest sector.