Medicine: Adapt current tools for handling big data

Valentin Bellassen and Sebastiaan Luyssaert suggest that forest managers should improve both carbon stocks and timber harvests to mitigate climate change (Nature 506, 153–155; 2014). But forests are more than just sticks of carbon. Maximizing harvests may be appropriate in heavily managed plantations. But in the remaining 96% of the world’s forests, it could conflict with other forest uses and ecosystem services, as well as with biodiversity. Some 1.6 billion people depend on forests to live. So optimizing wood production and carbon stocks at the expense of traditional uses and access rights could backfire. These people should not become carbon refugees. Adapt current tools for handling big data