Mauno Pesonen

Non-industrial private forest landowners’ choices of timber management strategies and potential allowable cut

Pesonen M. (1995). Non-industrial private forest landowners’ choices of timber management strategies and potential allowable cut. Acta Forestalia Fennica no. 247 article id 7509. https://doi.org/10.14214/aff.7509

Abstract

In the study, the potential allowable cut in the district of North-Savo, Eastern Finland was clarified  based on the non-industrial private forest landowners’ (NIPF) choices of timber management strategies. Alternative timber management strategies were generated, and the choices and factors affecting the choices of timber management strategies by NIPF landowners were studied. The choices of timber management strategies were solved by maximizing the utility functions of the NIPF landowners. The parameters of the utility functions were estimated using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP).

The level of the potential allowable cut was compared to the cutting budgets based on the 7th and 8th National Forest Inventories (NFI7, NFI8) in Finland, to the combining of private forestry plans, and to the realized drain from non-industrial private forests. The potential allowable cut was calculated using the MELA system that has been used in calculating the national cutting budget.

The data consisted of the NIPF holdings that had been inventoried compartmentwise and had forestry plans made in 1984–92. The NIPF landowners’ choices of timber management strategies were clarified by a mail inquiry.

The most preferred strategy obtained was ”sustainability” (chosen by 62% of landowners). The second was ”finance” (17%) and the third ”savings” (11%). ”No cuttings”, and ”maximum cuttings” were the least preferred (9% and 1%, resp.). The factors promoting the choices of strategies with intensive cuttings were: a) ”farmer as forest owner” and ”owing fields”, b) ”increase in the size of the forest holding”, c) agriculture and forestry orientation in production, d) ”decreasing short-term stumpage earnings expectations”, e) ”increasing intensity of future cuttings”, and f) ”choice of forest taxation system based on site productivity”.

The potential allowable cut defined in the study was 20% higher than the average of the realized drain in 1988–93, which was at the same level as the cutting budget based on the combining of forestry plans in Eastern Finland. The potential allowable cut defined in the study was 12% lower than the NFI8-based greatest sustained allowable cut for the 1990. Using the method, timber management strategies can be clarified for private forest owners.

Keywords
non-industrial private forest owners; utility function; Analytic Hierarchy Process; potential allowable cut; timber management strategy

Published in 1995

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