Financial Outcomes of Harvests Aimed at Diversifying Forests in Western Oregon and Washington

Understanding the financial implications of forest harvest practices aimed at increasing the structural and tree species diversity in homogenous stands is crucial for many landowners when making management decisions. We surveyed landowners interested in managing for a variety of ecosystem services a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Small-scale forestry 2024-12, Vol.23 (4), p.673-692
Main Authors: Puettmann, Klaus J., Braybrook, Rowan, Zuckerman, Seth, Kuusela, Olli-Pekka
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural Economics
Agriculture
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Carbon sequestration
Costs
Data collection
Datasets
Economics
Ecosystem management
Ecosystem services
Environmental Economics
Environmental Management
Environmental restoration
Financial management
Forest harvesting
Forest management
Forestry
Forestry Management
Gross income
Harvest
Hypotheses
Landowners
Life Sciences
Original Research
Plant diversity
Plant species
Profitability
Species diversity
Stand structure
Statistical analysis
Trees
Variables
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Summary:Understanding the financial implications of forest harvest practices aimed at increasing the structural and tree species diversity in homogenous stands is crucial for many landowners when making management decisions. We surveyed landowners interested in managing for a variety of ecosystem services and documented over 80 harvest operations. These showed the wide range of settings, including pre-treatment stands conditions, under which restoration treatments can be profitable. In the documented operations, the profitability of the harvest depended mainly on a suite of factors associated with the initial stand conditions, and environmental and financial settings. Treatments in stands that were previously managed for timber production had higher profitability due to removal of higher value trees. Applying such treatments in stands that already had a diversity of tree species and sizes provided less income. Other factors, such as slope and the amount of removal, were also influential. Four case studies provide examples showing how landowners adjusted their treatments and took advantage of beneficial settings and conditions to make treatments aimed at diversifying forests profitable. This, combined with an understanding that leaving high value trees in the stand is an investment, made it feasible for landowners to achieve ecological goals within their management constraints.
ISSN:1873-7617
1873-7854
DOI:10.1007/s11842-024-09582-2