By planting a young tree, you make a quiet promise to a century you will likely never fully see. But as anyone working in forestry knows, predicting the world that tree will grow into is getting ever harder. Rapidly shifting climate patterns, new pests and diseases, and fluctuating timber markets mean that the choices we make in woodlands today carry unprecedented weight and jeopardy.
Traditional horizon scanning—gathering a panel of experts every few years to assess future risks—gives us a helpful snapshot, but it is fundamentally a static exercise. Environmental change does not pause between these exercises and their reports. That is why my co-author Gill Petrokofsky and I set out to ask a crucial question: Could artificial intelligence help us anticipate the long-term challenges facing Britain’s forests more continuously?
In our new paper published in Forestry: An International Journal of Forest Research, we explore how AI can act as an intelligent early-warning radar for forest resilience. Modern algorithms can process vast oceans of scientific literature, policy documents, and trade data in seconds, highlighting subtle ‘weak signals’ of potential ecosystem threats long before they become obvious on the ground.
Yet, technology has clear boundaries. AI cannot grasp local context, make ethical decisions, or understand what a community truly values about its local woodland. Currently, AI also has limited access to data and information (for example research published behind a paywall). That is why we propose a hybrid foresight framework. In this model, AI broadens our horizons by identifying patterns and mapping out plausible future scenarios, while human experts—foresters, scientists, and land managers—provide the contextual judgment, challenge assumptions, and hold ultimate responsibility for decisions.
To put this into practice across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, we also advocate for a UK Forestry Foresight Lab. This distributed network would link researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, enabling shared data, continuous risk monitoring, and collaborative scenario planning.
Ultimately, artificial intelligence is not a crystal ball, and it will never replace the deep-rooted knowledge of experienced foresters. But by marrying the analytical speed of AI with human wisdom, imagination, and care, we can help Britain’s forests adapt earlier and thrive for generations to come.
Read the paper: Gabriel Hemery and Gill Petrokofsky (2026) Hybrid foresight: integrating artificial intelligence and expert judgement to address strategic challenges in UK Forest resilience, Forestry: An International Journal of Forest Research, Volume 99, Issue 4, October 2026, cpag066, https://doi.org/10.1093/forestry/cpag066
See more of my scientific papers
