Pedro J. Sartori, Stella Z. Schons, Gregory S. Amacher, Harold Burkhart
{"title":"Deferred rotation carbon programs for even-aged forests: Aligning landowner and societal objectives","authors":"Pedro J. Sartori, Stella Z. Schons, Gregory S. Amacher, Harold Burkhart","doi":"10.1016/j.forpol.2024.103295","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Forest carbon program opportunities continue to expand for nonindustrial private landowners. We propose a novel forest harvest deferral-based program that would offer a stream of payments (a subsidy) for landowners in exchange for a rotation deferral. We analytically derive a representative landowner's marginal costs and marginal benefits associated with the deferred forest rotation and calculate the minimum payment necessary to incentivize a landowner to choose the socially optimal rotation instead of the private solution. At the socially optimal rotation age, the benefits to society from harvest deferral stem from the additional CO<sub>2</sub> sequestered through biomass production and storage of CO<sub>2</sub> for the longer periods inherent in sawtimber products. A simulation is used to assess how sensitive the socially optimal rotation age is to different site productivity levels and other assumptions. We show that more productive sites mean shorter forest rotation extension periods and demand higher payments due to the higher land and capital opportunity costs involved with deferred harvests. We also show that a longer sawtimber lifespan increases the socially optimal rotation time. All scenarios explored suggest that rotation extensions should be greater than one and shorter than twenty years. The methodology we propose is the only one that we are aware of that objectively determines the optimal forest harvest deferral time for different scenarios while aligning private landowner and societal objectives.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":12451,"journal":{"name":"Forest Policy and Economics","volume":"168 ","pages":"Article 103295"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Forest Policy and Economics","FirstCategoryId":"97","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389934124001497","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Forest carbon program opportunities continue to expand for nonindustrial private landowners. We propose a novel forest harvest deferral-based program that would offer a stream of payments (a subsidy) for landowners in exchange for a rotation deferral. We analytically derive a representative landowner's marginal costs and marginal benefits associated with the deferred forest rotation and calculate the minimum payment necessary to incentivize a landowner to choose the socially optimal rotation instead of the private solution. At the socially optimal rotation age, the benefits to society from harvest deferral stem from the additional CO2 sequestered through biomass production and storage of CO2 for the longer periods inherent in sawtimber products. A simulation is used to assess how sensitive the socially optimal rotation age is to different site productivity levels and other assumptions. We show that more productive sites mean shorter forest rotation extension periods and demand higher payments due to the higher land and capital opportunity costs involved with deferred harvests. We also show that a longer sawtimber lifespan increases the socially optimal rotation time. All scenarios explored suggest that rotation extensions should be greater than one and shorter than twenty years. The methodology we propose is the only one that we are aware of that objectively determines the optimal forest harvest deferral time for different scenarios while aligning private landowner and societal objectives.
期刊介绍:
Forest Policy and Economics is a leading scientific journal that publishes peer-reviewed policy and economics research relating to forests, forested landscapes, forest-related industries, and other forest-relevant land uses. It also welcomes contributions from other social sciences and humanities perspectives that make clear theoretical, conceptual and methodological contributions to the existing state-of-the-art literature on forests and related land use systems. These disciplines include, but are not limited to, sociology, anthropology, human geography, history, jurisprudence, planning, development studies, and psychology research on forests. Forest Policy and Economics is global in scope and publishes multiple article types of high scientific standard. Acceptance for publication is subject to a double-blind peer-review process.