Timber Harvest Adjacency Economies, Hunting, Species Protection, and Old Growth Value: Seeking the Optimum

Abstract

WP 2000-10 July 2000Spatial forest management models recognize that nontimber benefits can be influenced by the status of adjacent land. For instance, contiguous old growth provides habitat, aesthetic value, and environmental services. Conversely, edge areas provide forage and cover habitat for game and non-game wildlife. However, adjacency externalities are not limited to nontimber concerns. Larger harvest areas generate average cost savings as fixed harvesting costs are spread across greater acreage, a problem excluded from most literature on optimal harvesting. Hence, it is typical that economies and diseconomies of adjacency in harvesting occur simultaneously. This complicates the determination of optimal ecosystem management behavior, which recognizes timber, aesthetic, wildlife protection, and hunting values. This paper conceptually portrays economies of adjacency in competing objectives using multiple management strategies.Financial support came from a Teresa Heinz Scholars for Environmental Research grant, Cornell Agricultural Experiment Station Hatch Project 456, and the Department of Agricultural, Resource, and Managerial Economics at Cornell University