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Without being specific concerning plant and forest species and circumstance, there is likely to be good support for the statement that most types of non-forest plants are not going to be equivalent to produce benefits of forests. And not all lands are necessarily best suited to be managed, maintained as, or converted to forests. There are some lands such as riparian areas along streams which really gain high degree of benefit from maintaining native forest species and diversity, water quality, etc.

Early forest activities used clear cutting of vast tracts of land to either convert the land to farming, grazing or other uses. Forest management became a technical profession when some early conservationists saw results of cutting down forests with no responsible effort to regenerate and manage forests for their products and multiple uses and benefits. Depending on forest species, regeneration techniques include plantation and natural methods (Eg, coppice). I believe from my forestry training that some of the first forestry curricula were in a Germany to address losses in forests there. Many countries have had to address issues from forest losses to other land uses. In USA, a President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot were significant in efforts to conserve national forests and introduce responsible management using professional forester techniques. If interested, there are several good books written on this history. In recent past, I enjoyed reading some of this history in The Big Burn by Timothy Egan. Over the years, the US Forest Service has been actively managing forests and expanding technology that recognizes their multiple uses for recreation, wildlife, fisheries, water quality, forest products, etc. The plantations of today are best designed for multiple uses and benefits when they include native forest species and avoid planting non-native invasive species or off site or poorly suited species to site conditions. But sometimes there may be special forest species needs for products or benefits, so some tracts might be managed more or less as a monoculture of fast growing species for wood pulp or biofuel, or plantations to produce for example suitable trees for urban needs or Christmas trees, specialized lumber needs, etc. Special management in the practice of silviculture may help address specific wildlife needs, rare or endangered species, techniques to support water yield and clean water, etc. Some have tried to combine benefits of forests and grasslands by thinning forest stands to low basal area (silvipasture), and use prescribed fire to maintain grassland and forb understory. Consultation with foresters, botanists, ecologists, soil scientists, wildlife biologists, hydrologists and range conservationists, integrated with landowners and other interests, may help provide advice or help decide on appropriate levels of vegetation cover trade offs if addressing best practices to consider the full array of forest and non-forest management for landscape or regional scales.

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It is always prudent to introduce non-native species with due care.

Please, what are the most ineffective plants as a substitute for forests and their degree of impact on environmental change?