Reducing Impacts of Forestry: The Fallacy of Low-Intensity Management

New definitions are provided of intensive and extensive forestry in version 3 of the ecoinvent database. These definitions are based on explicit and easily measured indicators for the most important aspects of forestry management for biodiversity. Unfortunately, many certified forestry products come from what would be classified as intensive forestry in the ecoinvent classification. The real challenge is to develop forest management systems that have a neutral or positive biodiversity impact relative to that of plantation forestry. Such truly extensive, biodiversity-managed forestry is very challenging and not very common today. Ample options exist for
increasing yields in intensive and plantation forests, which can be recommended as having lower biodiversity impact than similar products from other management systems, certified or not.