China implemented a new round of collective forestland tenure reform during 2003–2013. In this reform, forestland owned by villages or township collective organizations were divided into a great ...number of small plots and allocated to member households of the collectives. A widespread concern about the reform is that parcelization of forestland might limit farmers’ incentives to invest in forest management. This paper examines the factors affecting farmers’ investment in forest management using household data collected in four provinces in 2010. The results show that the intensity of a household's investment in forest management is negatively affected by its nonfarm income and the average size of forest plots, but positively affected by the easiness in obtaining loan and the technical assistance the household receives. We argue that the counterintuitive effect of nonfarm income on investment intensity is due to the increasing marginal cost of own labor input. The effects of forest plot size and easiness in obtaining loan suggest that households have limited amount of capital to invest in forest management. Because of this constraint, parcelization of forestland resulted from the recent reform has not yet caused any reduction of the intensity of investment in forest management.
This paper provides an overview of China’s climate mitigation policy related to the forestry sector, with a special focus on the development of carbon forests which are established to mitigate ...climate change. A total of 3.5 million ha of carbon forest were planted in the past decade. In recent years, the number of Voluntary Emission Reduction forest carbon projects has increased rapidly. The main challenges for future development of carbon forests under market mechanisms include increasing costs, uncertainty in the future supply and demand for China-certified emission reduction, and potential disputes between households and project developers.
The lack of economic information for management of longleaf pine, a forest type that once dominated the landscape in the southeastern United States, can be a major barrier to landowners to planting ...this species. This study compares the economic performance of even-aged longleaf pine with loblolly pine. We assume that a longleaf pine stand produces timber, water yield, wildlife habitats and pinestraw raking, while a loblolly pine stand is managed exclusively for timber production. For both species, future timber prices are uncertain and harvest decisions will be made following an optimal adaptive harvest strategy. Our findings show that investing in longleaf pine plantations is not generally an economically attractive option compared to loblolly pine for landowners. On average, the land expectation value for loblolly pine is $4610 ha−1 higher than the land expectation value of longleaf pine. Stronger markets for water yield ($0.04–$0.073 k-liter−1) can favor the competitiveness of longleaf over loblolly pine. In the absence of increased payments for water production, landowners require financial incentives between $235–$642 ha−1 over 15 years, to switch from planting loblolly to longleaf pine. When water payments are included ($0.03–$0.0 k-liter−1), incentives between $173–320 ha−1 are required to plant longleaf instead of loblolly pine.
•We compare the economic viability of longleaf vs loblolly pine management.•Investing in longleaf is not economically viable compared to loblolly pine.•Stronger markets for water yield can favor the competitiveness of longleaf pine.•Landowners require high financial incentives to switch from loblolly to longleaf.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
This paper examines the impact of the natural conservation policy in China's giant panda reserves on forest resource utilization and its economic consequences. Different support policies have created ...different development opportunities for local communities and farmers, which have led to changes in forest use by farmers and their forest-related livelihoods. The empirical results indicate that the use of forest resources by communities and farmers is changing from traditional consumptive uses, such as timber harvest and the collection of nontimber products, to nonconsumptive uses such as ecotourism, forest farming and forest guard. While the share of farmers who are dependent on forests has generally been similar (30% -39%), farmers who are engaged in different types of forest-related activities have shown significant income differentiation. With more participation in eco-tourism, farmers are more likely to become a wealthy group with high income and high assets, whereas engaging in forest farming and logging and NTFP gathering is not conducive to increasing farmers' current incomes. The income inequality among the farmers in the study area is more serious than in other regions. Promoting equal opportunities through diversification and the wide participation of poor groups should be one of the directions for community development in the giant panda reserves.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
•We examine the effect of forest taxes on the optimal harvest decision.•Site value tax or site productivity tax does not affect reservation prices.•Timber value tax reduces, and yield tax increases, ...reservation prices.•Unit harvest tax increases reservation prices when stand age is relatively high.•The tax burden is reduced for all types of taxes except the site value tax.
We examine the effect of forest taxes on the optimal harvest decision and the forest land value using an adaptive optimization framework– the stand is harvested when the stumpage price is equal or higher than an age-dependent reservation price. We prove that the site value tax or site productivity tax does not change the optimal reservation prices; the timber value tax reduces the optimal reservation prices; the yield tax increases the optimal reservation prices when the non-timber benefits are increasing with stand age, or when they are independent of the stand age and the regeneration cost is positive; and the unit harvest tax increases the reservation prices when stand age is relatively high and could reduce the reservation price when stand age is low. Numerical results show that the optimal harvest age is only sensitive to the unit and timber value tax. The tax burden is reduced for all types of taxes except the site value tax. Under a taxation budget constraint, recognition of stumpage price uncertainty may change forest owners’ preferences for different types of taxes.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
This paper examines the potential and the cost of promoting forest carbon sequestration through a tax/subsidy to land owners for reducing/increasing carbon storage in their forests. We use a partial ...equilibrium model based on intertemporal optimization to estimate the impacts of carbon price (the tax/subsidy rate) on timber harvest volume and price in different time periods and on the change of forest carbon stock over time. The results show that a higher carbon price would lead to higher forest carbon stocks. The tax/subsidy induced annual net carbon sequestration is declining over time. The net carbon sequestration during 2015–2050 would increase by 30.2 to 218.3 million tonnes of CO2, when carbon price increases from 170SEK to 1428SEK per tonne of CO2. The associated cost, in terms of reduced total benefits of timber and other non-timber goods, ranges from 80SEK to 105.8SEK per tonne of CO2. The change in carbon sequestration (as compared with the baseline case) beyond 2050 is small when carbon price is 680SEK per tonne of CO2 or lower. With a carbon price of 1428SEK per tonne of CO2, carbon sequestration will increase by 70 million tonnes of CO2 from the baseline level during 2050-2070, and by 64 million tonnes during 2070–2170.
An increase in the demand for fuelwood has the potential to affect traditional timber production. Based on a partial equilibrium model of the Swedish forest sector, this paper evaluates the supply ...and price of sawlogs, pulpwood and fuelwood under differing levels of future fuelwood demand. The results indicate that an increasing demand for fuelwood would intensify the competition between pulpwood and fuelwood, which would cause the prices of pulpwood and fuelwood to increase. The pulpwood supply would decrease and the fuelwood supply would increase in response to fuelwood demand expansion. An increasing demand for fuelwood would affect the harvest of sawlogs positively, though the effect would be small. It is concluded that an increase in the use of fuelwood would affect mainly the pulp and paper industry in terms of the provision of raw materials. Besides, the annual increment of forest standing volume would exceed the harvest in all the scenarios analyzed, implying that the Swedish forests are a carbon sink.
•A partial equilibrium model of Swedish forest sector is developed that explicitly links the supply of sawlog, pulpwood and fuelwood.•The optimization method instead of the econometric method is applied to determine the interdependence between different timber products.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
We present a reservation price model to examine the joint impacts of natural disturbances and stumpage price uncertainty on the optimal harvesting decision for even‐aged forest stands. We consider a ...landowner who manages a loblolly pine stand to produce timber and amenities, under age‐dependent risk of wildfires and uncertainty in future timber prices. We show that the incorporation of risk of wildfires decreases the optimal reservation prices. The inclusion of risk of wildfires leads to lower land values and reduces the mean harvest age compared with the case of no‐risk of wildfires. Higher economic gains are obtained with the reservation price strategy compared with the deterministic rotation age model—a difference in the land value of $2,326 ha−1 (21%) between the two approaches.
Recommendations for Resource Managers
Our adaptive harvest strategy shows that the incorporation of risk of wildfires decreases the optimal reservation prices compared with the case of no‐risk of wildfires.
Low reservation prices—a price that makes the landowner indifferent between harvesting or waiting longer—result in lower economic benefits for landowners and potential conversions of lands to nonforest use.
Forest management practices oriented to reduce the effects of catastrophic disturbances, for example, creating a more complex forest structure with different stand densities, become imperative to ensure the sustainability of forestlands in the US South.
Our analysis also suggests that the valuation of forestry investments should consider not only the risk of catastrophic events but also uncertainty in future timber prices. Higher appraisals of land value are obtained when timber price uncertainty is explicitly recognized, providing financial incentives for landowners to invest in forestry.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
This study analyzes the effects of adopting an adaptive harvest strategy in even-aged forest management under timber price uncertainty on the production of nontimber goods. We use the reservation ...price strategy (“harvest when the observed timber prices are higher than the reservation prices”) on a longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) stand and employ the Faustmann–Hartman model as a benchmark. We assume that a longleaf pine stand can be managed for timber production, water production, carbon sequestration, and pine straw raking, depending on the planting density. Our results indicate that the reservation price strategy leads to longer expected harvest age when planting density is high. The reservation price strategy does not lead to increases in water production and carbon sequestration with low planting density. With high planting density, the reservation price strategy leads to increases in the amount of in situ carbon sequestered by 14.4–24.7 Mg·ha
–1
. Our findings suggest that managing longleaf pine forests in good- or poor-quality sites is a profitable alternative and enables water production and carbon sequestration.
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BF, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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