Managing Forests for Multiple Tradeoffs: Compromising on Timber, Carbon, and Biodiversity Objectives

Emina Krcmar, Gerrit van Kooten and Ilan Vertinsky

No 2004-02, Working Papers from University of Victoria, Department of Economics, Resource Economics and Policy Analysis Research Group

Abstract: In this paper, we develop a multiple objective, decision-making model that focuses on forest policies that simultaneously achieve carbon uptake and maintenance of ecosystem diversity objectives. Two forest carbon measures are used – a nominal (undiscounted) net carbon uptake as a proxy for long-term carbon sequestration and discounted net carbon uptake that captures the “fast” carbon accumulation aspect. Ecosystem diversity is expressed in terms of desired structures for forest and afforested agricultural land. Economic effects of possible strategies are examined by comparing attainment of these objectives with the net discounted returns from commercial timber harvests and agricultural activities. The tradeoffs between timber and non-timber objectives are obtained by means of compromise programming. Two measures of distance between the current objective values and the ideal ones are used to assess attainment of multiple goals. We explore how the choice of a measure affects the decisions and overall performance. The model is applied to the boreal forest and accompanying marginal agricultural lands in the Peace River region of northeastern British Columbia.

Keywords: biological and ecosystem diversity; compromise programming; forest carbon sequestration; forest management; multiple objectives (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q23 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2004
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: MANAGING FORESTS FOR MULTIPLE TRADEOFFS: COMPROMISING ON TIMBER, CARBON AND BIODIVERSITY OBJECTIVES (2004)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rep:wpaper:2004-02

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