When does forest management beat reforestation? It depends and now you can see how.
We built Forest carbon lite (FCL) to help land managers, carbon project developers and policy makers compare restoration strategies under climate change.
Reforestation is often treated as the default carbon solution, but it isn’t always the most effective. FCL offers an evidence-based way to explore alternative pathways, for example targeted active forest management, that can restore carbon and resilience in existing forests. Built on validated Australian growth functions and parameters FCL generates 100 + scenarios in minutes and documents every assumption. It’s fast, reproducible, and open-source and fully customisable, so you can see how different carbon strategies compare.
Proudly built in-house by Pia Angelike, our forest systems analyst. We invite collaborators to improve and extend this open source tool.
Why we built it
National carbon models like FullCAM provide robust analysis, but they’re time-intensive and difficult to adapt for rapid decision-making. Simpler calculators are faster but limited in capturing how climate or management paths alter carbon outcomes.
We saw a gap: land managers need a tool that’s scientifically valid and easy to use. Until now, there’s been no way to directly compare reforestation and management carbon outcomes for specific sites. FCL closes that gap by bringing together validated growth algorithms with flexible, rapid scenario exploration.
How it works
Forest carbon lite is designed for practical decision-making. It features include:
- modular scenario builder; mix forest types, climate pathways, and management approach
- rapid generation; compare dozens of scenarios in minutes
- customisable; adapt parameters to match site conditions
- transparent and reproducible; all assumptions documented, all code is open source.
What we’ve learned so far
Our early modelling shows that active forest management can, in the right context, sequester as much carbon as reforestation, and sometimes more. We found 3 patterns stand out:
- Targeted AFM works in the right context – degraded eucalypt forests with high biomass potential respond strongly to active management
- Climate changes everything – warming scenarios reduce carbon outcomes by across all strategies
- Site conditions determine strategy – low-potential sites benefit more from reforestation, while high-potential degraded forests respond better to targeted interventions
This means AFM could significantly contribute to national carbon targets, while reducing land use pressure for reforestation.
Where Forest carbon lite fits today
FCL is built on validated components, but we’re clear about what it can and can’t do right now.
Good for:
- Preliminary site screening – rapidly evaluate carbon potential across sites to prioritise field assessment and identify promising restoration opportunities
- Scenario comparison – compare relative performance of management versus reforestation strategies under different climate futures to inform strategic planning
- Training and education – understand forest carbon dynamics, explore climate-management interactions and learn carbon accounting principles
- Research exploration – test hypotheses, identify knowledge gaps and develop research priorities for field validation studies.
Not yet:
- Sole basis for investment decisions
- Carbon credit project MRV (monitoring, reporting, verification)
- Regulatory compliance reporting
- Definitive forecasts without field verification
We’re seeking validation partners to test FCL against multi-year field data from existing restoration projects.
Collaborate with us
Open science only works when people share what they learn. We welcome collaboration from practitioners, researchers and project developers. You can help validate and improve the tool by:
- sharing monitoring data from your projects (carbon stocks, growth rates, disturbance impacts)
- reporting bugs or unexpected results
- suggesting new features
- testing the tool against your sites and share outcomes
- providing feedback on model logic and usability.
Get in touch through our contact form, we’d love to hear how you’re using the tool.
Key references
*See the technical report for a full list of references.
- Bennett, L.T. et al. (2024). Active Management: A Definition and Considerations for Implementation in Forests of Temperate Australia. Australian Forestry 87(3): 125–147.
- Forrester, D.I. et al. (2025). Calibration of the FullCAM Model for Australian Native Vegetation. Ecological Modelling 508: 111204.
- Paul, K.I. & Roxburgh, S.H. (2020). Predicting Carbon Sequestration of Woody Biomass Following Land Restoration. Forest Ecology and Management 460: 117838.
- Paul, K.I. & Roxburgh, S.H. (2025). Carbon Sequestration in Woody Biomass of Mulga Woodlands. The Rangeland Journal 47(3).