ABSTRACT
Silvicultural activity has generally been studied as an investment decision problem (Reyner et al. 1996; Thompson et al. 1992). The evaluation and selection of silvicultural projects are dictated by a set of economic efficiency criteria, with funds allocated to investments that promise the greatest expected discounted net benefits over the specified project life. Rooted in Faustmann theory, this capital budgeting approach has dominated economic analyses of stand-level forests. However, the limitations of the conventional approach in guiding forest planning and management have been increasingly recognized. As mentioned in Chapter 3, efforts aimed at augmenting the approach have been made along at least three lines: (1) incorporating non timber values into the standard economic analysis (Hartman 1976; Calish et al. 1978); (2) elevating the unit of analysis from the stand to the forest level, which led to debates on whether zoning can reconcile conflicts between dominant and multiple uses of forestland (Sahajananthan et al. 1998; Vincent and Binkley 1993), and on the role of the allowable cut effect in the harvesting of old-growth forests and regeneration (Schweitzer et al. 1972; Binkley 1980); and (3) including silviculture as a component of ecosystem management with attention to inter-regional and inter-generational considerations (Martin 1994; O’Hara and Oliver 1992).
