From Fortune Magazine:

The U.S. Forest Service, Portland, and citizen groups are using assisted migration strategies to help native trees in the Pacific Northwest adapt to climate change. As climate warming moves tree growing ranges, humans are intervening to move them to more suitable environments, but not everyone agrees whether it’s beneficial or harmful.

There is a divide in the Pacific Northwest about which form of assisted migration is best for the region. Some support moving native species to keep up with climate change, while others want to introduce new species from farther south. The risks include potential damage to ecosystems and disruptions to the food web involving native caterpillars and bird populations.

Groups like the Nature Conservancy and the Forest Service are experimenting with population migration to move native species’ genetic material within their existing range to reduce ecological risks. Assisted migration on a species level outside its existing range and “range expansion” offer greater risks to the ecosystem, and the Forest Service is cautious about long-distance movement and establishment of plant material outside a species’ historic range.

As the City of Portland and citizen-led organizations experiment with tree migration, some are concerned about potential ecological disruptions. An advocate for species migration, PropagationNation, has an ambitious goal of bringing a million coast redwoods and giant sequoias to the Northwest and planting them where native trees have seen die-offs and growth declines. This has sparked concerns about the impact on the food web of the region and potential ecological disruptions.

Private and public groups around the Pacific Northwest are increasingly taking the risks of assisted migration amid the effects of climate change. Forest ecologists and researchers remain cautious about the potential risks and are of differing opinions about what assisted migration strategy is best suited for the Pacific Northwest. Nonetheless, the risk of assisted migration is being increasingly assumed by groups in the region.



Read more: Climate change is forcing Pacific Northwest trees to move