ABSTRACT
AssiDomais one of Europe's largest forest products companies, and the largest private landowner in the world. As a corporation, AssiDoman is committed to two goals of equal importance: enduring profitability; and viable ecosystems with the same or higher biodiversity. AssiDoman sees the goals of sustainability and financial return as complementary and equal. Pre-commercial thinning is included in the ecological balance sheet starting in 1998. In the long term, this will be of decisive importance for achieving AssiDoman's production and environmental objectives. AssiDoman provides a strong example of the long-term economic benefits of managing for environmental goals: its analysis of the costs of undertaking site-adapted forestry versus industrial forestry revealed that, during the first year, its goal of preserving biodiversity entailed cost, but, over as little as a five-year period, site-adapted ecological forestry actually generated a 56% cost saving. AssiDoman reported achieving these cost efficiencies, even given the considerable investment made in the two-weeks-per-year operator training for applied forest ecology.
