Episode 86: Climate Change and FSC – Managing for Climate Impacts featuring Christian Messier, Amy Cardinal, and Vivian Peachy
Forest For The Future - PodcastsShow Notes
Title: Episode 86: Climate Change and FSC – Managing for Climate Impacts featuring Christian Messier, Amy Cardinal, and Vivian Peachy Author(s): Worm, Loa Dalgaard Description: Climate change is no longer a distant risk for forests — it is already reshaping ecosystems, livelihoods, and forest management decisions across Canada and the world. In this final episode of the Climate Change and FSC mini-series, we turn our attention to managing forests for climate impacts.
Host Loa Dalgaard Worm is joined by Christian Messier, Professor of Forest Ecology at UQO and UQAM, Amy Cardinal, Senior Fire Advisor at the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, and Vivian Peachy from FSC Canada. Together, they explore how climate-driven disturbances such as wildfire, insect outbreaks, drought, and flooding are increasing in frequency and intensity, and what this means for biodiversity, carbon storage, forest health, and community safety.
The conversation examines how forest management practices may need to evolve in response to these impacts, drawing on ecological science, Indigenous knowledge, and practical experience from the ground. Topics include wildfire as both a natural process and a growing risk, the role of forest diversity and resilience, the difference between carbon storage and carbon sequestration, and the real risk of forests shifting from carbon sinks to net carbon sources under increasing disturbance.
The episode also looks at how FSC Canada is working to adapt forest management standards to a changing climate, the challenges of balancing multiple forest values, and how tools such as climate vulnerability assessments, adaptive management, and collaboration across sectors can support climate-resilient forest stewardship.
This episode concludes the three-part series developed in collaboration between FSC Canada and FSC Denmark, exploring how climate adaptation, science, and governance can come together to shape the future of responsible forest management.
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