Search

• Integrated multi-objective optimization with wood price uncertainty. • Identified trade-offs and synergies, considering wood price uncertainty. • Optimal management allocations shift with spatial and harvest size constraints. • Spatial restrictions and wood price uncertainty impact NPV and carbon sequestration. • Results inform strategic decisions in forest management. Forest ecosystems deliver multiple services crucial for human wellbeing and welfare, with complex relationships among forest ecosystem services (FESs). Implementing sustainable forest management (SFM) policy requires insights into trade-offs, conflicts and synergies among key FESs, necessitating decision-support tools for multiple objectives. However, uncertainty in key parameters adds complexity. We formulated a tri-objective optimization problem concentrating on three vital ecosystem services in Nordic boreal forests: timber supply, climate change mitigation, and biodiversity conservation. Furthermore, future timber price uncertainty was integrated into the optimization model. Utilizing the TreeSim individual-tree growth and yield simulator, we simulated forest growth and yields, carbon stocks, and biodiversity values. Pareto-optimal solutions were found for four distinct management strategies using the epsilon-constrain method to solve the optimization problem. These management strategies differed in spatial restrictions on harvest location and timing, including considerations like harvest adjacency, green-up and maximum harvest opening area (MOA). The analysis revealed trade-offs among all three objectives, with variations influenced by management intensity. Furthermore, within the Pareto solutions for each strategy, a compromise solution was identified based on the knee-point method. The study demonstrated nuanced impacts of green-up constraints related to harvest practices, showing minor effects on harvesting, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity conservation when MOA was restricted to 35 hectares or less. However, more substantial impacts were observed with a MOA limited to 60 hectares or in a strategy without spatial restrictions. Our results underscore the importance of considering multiple objectives in forest management and policy under uncertain wood prices, preventing undesired effects from a singular or deterministic approach. This work provides insights into trade-offs and synergies, contributing to strategic planning and policy design. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Restoration initiatives would benefit from implementing strategic adaptive management • Restoration initiatives should incorporate sustainable human livelihood-driven outcomes • Restoration should be approached as a component of wider economic development • In restoration, human well-being is equally important as biodiversity conservation Land use change, coupled with rapid human population growth, has increased ecosystem degradation, giving rise to ecosystem restoration initiatives worldwide. We conducted an assessment and reflection using a feedback framework for strategic adaptive management in three woodland restoration initiatives in South Africa. This is because assessment and reflection are critical components for successful strategic adaptive management. We found that the three restoration initiatives have had a limited emphasis on sustainable livelihood-driven outcomes, because the initiatives mainly aimed to restore biodiversity, ecosystem infrastructure and ecosystem services. Consequently, we propose a modified livelihood framework that suggests a more inclusive approach towards achieving positive human outcome-driven restoration of degraded woodlands. Based on the framework, we emphasise that restoration initiatives should seek to invest in ecosystem restoration in the context of sustainable development goals, to enhance people's livelihoods, and climate change mitigation and adaptation. Harmonizing the competing needs for resource allocation, sustainable interventions and livelihoods sustenance will be important, given the limited extent of alternative locally based livelihood options in the rural disadvantaged areas. This is because most of the rural population is largely dependent on woodland ecosystem services for their livelihoods. We then suggest that to ensure that human-driven outcomes are also equally prioritised; the assessment, reflection and feedback framework and the livelihoods framework should form part of restoration initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peatlands provide habitats for many species and a variety of ecosystem services worldwide. In this study we used an integrated biophysical-economic modeling approach with multi-objective optimization to investigate how alternative land-use and land-management (LULM) options jointly affect economic returns from marketed (timber, energy peat, restoration costs) and non-marketed public goods (water quality, GHG emissions, biodiversity) in a typical landscape dominated by peatlands in northern Finland. We considered several LULM options including no action (the current state will continue), bioenergy wood harvesting, intensive forest management, restoration, and energy peat extraction with three after use options (no after use, reforestation, rewetting). Our study revealed strong tradeoffs between biodiversity and ecosystem services in drained peatlands. Optimal LULM depended strongly on the chosen objectives, i.e. whether marketed or non-marketed goods were preferred. For example, when the objective was carbon neutral land-use, the no action option was mostly chosen, while bioenergy wood harvesting was mostly chosen when the objective was to provide economic and environmental benefits at the same time. The strong tradeoff between biodiversity and ecosystem services indicates that compromises are unavoidable in order to obtain a multi-functional landscape which provides biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and water protection in a cost-effective manner. • Selection of alternative land-management options for peatlands was analyzed. • The cost-impact analysis utilized multi-objective optimization. • The variables were the NPV, biodiversity, climate impact, and water emissions. • A small decrease in the NPV resulted in a clear increase in environmental benefits. • Optimal land-management depended strongly on the chosen objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]