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The common assumption of risk neutrality in forest decision making is generally inadequate because the stakeholders tend to be averse to fluctuations in the return criteria. In Markov decision processes (MDPs) of forest management, risk aversion and standard mean-variance analysis can be readily dealt with if the criteria are undiscounted expected values. However, with discounted criteria such as the fundamental net present value of financial returns, the classic mean-variance optimization is numerically intractable. In lieu of this, this paper (i) presents a linear-programming method to calculate the variance of discounted criteria conditional on any specific policy and (ii) adopts, as an alternative to the variance measure of risk, the "discount normalized variance" (DNV), an economically meaningful criterion consistent with income-smoothing behavior. The DNV is then used in procedures analogous to mean-variance analysis and certainty-equivalent optimization tractable by quadratic programming. The methods are applied to the management of uneven-aged, mixed-species forests in the southern United States. The results document the trade-off between the expected net present value and risk of financial returns, as well as the consequences for selected ecological criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public advisory committees (PACs) are a dominant form of public participation in Canada's Crown forests, providing a venue in which members of the local public can engage and influence sustainable forest management decision-making. In this paper, we examine the experiences of Indigenous participants (relative to non-Indigenous participants) concerning the success of PAC processes. We focus on issues of fairness, equity, and inclusion of Indigenous voices along with an assessment of forest values diversity. Findings from surveys in 2004 and 2016 indicate statistically significant differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous PAC members regarding their forest values and their evaluation of the success of PAC processes. This work draws attention to the relative experiences of survey participants and the identification of persistent challenges associated with public engagement over the last two decades. Policy recommendations include substantial changes to how we define and measure sustainable forest management in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the Government of British Columbia (BC) introduced the Community Forest Agreement Program in 1998, it permitted a range of governance structures to allow flexibility and to learn which structures might be most appropriate for this new form of forest tenure. One structure that became fairly common was collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. This paper characterizes and analyzes the advantages of this collaborative governance model in three ways, identifying (1) what benefits this model entails, (2) how these are illustrated in three different community forests, and (3) how these forms of collaboration fit into a co-management spectrum. Because some of these benefits involve communities having greater degrees of power in forest governance, the model invites a consideration of the types of decision-making power experienced by Indigenous communities partnering or collaborating in BC community forests, as well as the types and range of benefits for all parties emerging from these collaborations. Fourteen indicators of the benefits of collaboration are identified, building on the discovery of five new benefits heretofore unrecognized in the literature. These understandings permit a more nuanced assessment of this particular type of co-management, leading to the generation of three new, broader hypotheses regarding the conditions that support co-management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present an approach employing multiobjective optimization to support decision making in forest management planning under risk. The primary objectives are biodiversity and timber cash flow, evaluated from two perspectives: the expected value and the value-at-risk (VaR). In addition, the risk level for both the timber cash flow and biodiversity values are included as objectives. With our approach, we highlight the trade-off between the expected value and the VaR, as well as between the VaRs of the two objectives of interest. We employ an interactive method in which a decision maker iteratively provides preference information to find the most preferred management plan and learns about the interdependencies of the objectives at the same time. The method is illustrated with a case study in which biodiversity is assessed through an index calculated from the characteristics of the forest. Uncertainty is included both through modifying the input data according to the accuracy of current inventory methods and through growth model errors. This uncertainty is described using a set of 25 scenarios. Involving multiple components of risk is a highly relevant approach in multiobjective forestry; however, estimation of the uncertainty of biodiversity needs further attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing demand for active public involvement in forestry decision making, but there are as yet few established models for achieving this in the new sustainable forest management (SFM) context. At the level of the working forest, the fields of forest sustainability assessment, public participation, decision support, and computer technology in spatial modelling and visualization need to be integrated. This paper presents the results of a literature review of public participation and decision-support methods, with emphasis on case study examples in participatory decision support. These suggest that emerging methods, such as public multicriteria analysis of alternative forest management scenarios and allied tools, may lend themselves to public processes addressing sustainability criteria and indicators. The paper develops a conceptual framework for participatory decision support to address the special needs of SFM in tactical planning at the landscape level. This framework consists of principles, process criteria, and preliminary guidelines for designing and evaluating SFM planning processes with community input. More well-documented studies are needed to develop comprehensive, engaging, open, and accountable processes that support informed decision making in forest management, and to strengthen guidance for managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]