The impact of using alterative risk views when setting harvest levels on an uncertain harvestable land base in British Columbia

In British Columbia, the chief forester is legally required to set harvest levels within a dynamic forest environment. One of the most contentious issues currently is the size of the productive forest that is harvestable. The Forest Service has chosen to portray timber supply over time with a risk neutral approach towards the size of the harvestable land base, while other interest groups would advocate either a risk taking view or risk averse view. This study provides insight into the tradeoffs which are made in setting harvest levels with the three different risk views and a harvestable land base of unknown size for both a coastal and interior example. Harvest levels are determined for decade 1 and 2, using assumed principles for each view, after which time it is assumed that perfect information is in place for the rest of a 100 year planning horizon. Flexibility in harvest level determination after decade 2 is dependent on the harvest level choices made for decade 1 and 2. The indicators used to examine the implications of the different risk outlooks can be categorized as economic, harvest flow stability and state of the system. The indicators were in turn weighted by using one of three probability distributions coinciding with the presuppositions of the three risk views. The numerical results indicate that while large short term economic and harvest flow advantages are achieved through using a risk taking approach, future flexibility and economic value may be foregone. Conversely, using a risk averse view results in highly stable harvest flows over time at the expense of short term economic gain and the possibility of unnecessarily large reductions in harvest level before perfect information is available. It is believed that the risk neutral view, while foregoing some harvest flow flexibility, will result in a more robust strategy in yielding economic values close to those obtained by risk taking while achieving harvest flow characteristics close to those of the risk averse view. Based on the results, modifications to harvest flow policy are suggested as a means of further improving the strategic objectives while maintaining harvest flow policy decline guidelines.Forestry, Faculty ofGraduat