TY - JOUR
T1 - Harvest decisions and spatial landscape attributes
T2 - The case of galician communal forests
AU - Touza, Julia
AU - Perrings, Charles
AU - Amil, María Luisa Chas
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments We would like to thank Ricardo Álvarez, Begoña Besteiro, Rocio Conde, Mette Terman-sen, Riccardo Scarpa, Jim Smart, Carmen Somouza and professional foresters in Forest District: Vigo-Baixo-Miño, particularly Venancio Miniño, Gumersindo Rey, Manuel Jesús Rodríguez and José Santos for invaluable information and useful discussions. Julia Touza acknowledges financial support from the European Union through the BioEcon project.
PY - 2010/5
Y1 - 2010/5
N2 - In recent years, forest management has moved towards a landscape approach reflecting a mix of social, environmental and economic values. In this paper, we evaluate the effect on harvesting decisions of the spatial attributes of communal forests in Galicia. We first model the forest landscape management problem within a bioeconomic framework, which allows the identification of optimal clear-cutting strategies. This framework makes it possible to model a Faustmann-type rotation at the landscape level. The empirical analysis uses data from communal forests in Galicia, Spain. Under communal ownership, members of a rural community have rights to forest resources, but not rights to the forest itself. The management of communal forests integrates multiple forest uses within the decision making process. Given the communal nature of forest rights, and given these multiple uses, we show that landscape patterns-fragmentation, diversity and clumpiness-determine rotation periods.
AB - In recent years, forest management has moved towards a landscape approach reflecting a mix of social, environmental and economic values. In this paper, we evaluate the effect on harvesting decisions of the spatial attributes of communal forests in Galicia. We first model the forest landscape management problem within a bioeconomic framework, which allows the identification of optimal clear-cutting strategies. This framework makes it possible to model a Faustmann-type rotation at the landscape level. The empirical analysis uses data from communal forests in Galicia, Spain. Under communal ownership, members of a rural community have rights to forest resources, but not rights to the forest itself. The management of communal forests integrates multiple forest uses within the decision making process. Given the communal nature of forest rights, and given these multiple uses, we show that landscape patterns-fragmentation, diversity and clumpiness-determine rotation periods.
KW - Bioeconomic model
KW - Faustmann-Hartman
KW - Harvesting decisions
KW - Multiple-stand forest
KW - Non-timber benefits
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U2 - 10.1007/s10640-009-9335-z
DO - 10.1007/s10640-009-9335-z
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77950690047
SN - 0924-6460
VL - 46
SP - 75
EP - 91
JO - Environmental and Resource Economics
JF - Environmental and Resource Economics
IS - 1
ER -