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Managing forests and forest products has substantial potential to help mitigate climate change but the cost has not been extensively examined in Canada. We estimated the cost of seven forest-related mitigation strategies in Canada's 230 million hectares of managed forest, divided into 32 spatial units. For each strategy and spatial unit, we determined forest sector mitigation cost per tonne (t) using estimated impacts on forest sector greenhouse gas emissions and removals and net revenue. National cost curves showed that mitigation averaged 11.0 Mt C[O.sub.2]e x [year.sup.-1] in 2015-2050 at costs below $50 x t C[O.sub.2]e x [year.sup.-1] for a strategy of increased recovery of harvested biomass, increased salvage, extraction of harvest residues for bioenergy, and increased production of longer lived products. We also examined national portfolios in which the strategy selected for each spatial unit (from among the seven examined) was chosen to maximize mitigation or minimize costs. At low levels of mitigation, portfolios chosen to minimize costs were much cheaper than those that maximized mitigation, but overall, they yielded less than half the total mitigation of the latter portfolios. Choosing strategies to maximize mitigation in 2015-2050 yielded an average of 16.5 Mt-year-1 at costs below $50 x t C[O.sub.2]e x [year.sup.-1]. Our analysis suggests that forest-related strategies may be cost-effective choices to help achieve long-term emission reductions in Canada. Key words: Canada, cost, climate change mitigation, forest management, harvested wood products. L'amenagement des forets et les produits forestiers ont un potentiel considerable pour attenuer les changements climatiques, mais au Canada peu d'etudes ont examine les couts associes a ces mesures. Nous avons estime le cout de sept strategies d'attenuation en milieu forestier dans les 230 millions d'hectares de forets amenagees du Canada divisees en 32 unites spatiales. Pour chaque strategie et chaque unite spatiale, nous avons determine le cout par tonne (t) de l'attenuation due au secteur forestier en ayant recours a l'estimation des impacts sur l'emission et l'absorption de gaz a effet de serre et sur le revenu net associes au secteur forestier. Selon les courbes de cout nationales, le niveau d'attenuation atteindrait en moyenne 11,0 Mt eq. C[O.sub.2] x [an.sup.-1] de 2015 a 2050 a un cout de moins de 50 $-t eq. [C[O.sub.2].sup.-1] pour une strategie qui inclut la recuperation accrue de la biomasse recoltee, une plus grande recuperation, la recolte des residus forestiers pour la bioenergie et une augmentation de la production de produits qui ont une plus longue duree de vie. Nous avons aussi evalue les portefeuilles nationaux dans lesquels la strategie selectionnee pour chaque unite spatiale (parmi les sept strategies etudiees) a ete choisie pour maximiser l'attenuation et minimiser les couts. Pour des niveaux d'attenuation faibles, les portefeuilles qui ont ete retenus pour minimiser les couts etaient beaucoup moins dispendieux que ceux qui maximisaient l'attenuation, mais globalement ils ont produit moins de la moitie de l'attenuation totale. Choisir des strategies qui maximisent l'attenuation de 2015 a 2050 entrainerait une reduction moyenne des emissions de 16,5 Mt x [an.sup.-1] a un cout de moins de 50 $-t eq. [C[O.sub.2].sup.-1]. Notre analyse indique que les strategies en lien avec le secteur forestier peuvent etre des choix rentables pour atteindre les objectifs a long terme de reduction des emissions au Canada. [Traduit par la Redaction] Mots-cles: Canada, cout, attenuation des changements climatiques, amenagement forestier, recolte de produits forestiers., 1. Introduction Management of forests and forest products has substantial global potential to mitigate climate change by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or increasing carbon sequestration (Barker et al. 2007; [...]

Abstract: The intensification of forest management in Canada has been advocated as a possible solution to the conundrum that increasing demand for conservation areas and increasing pressure for timber production [...]

Various difficulties are encountered when integrating spatial and temporal goals of forest planning with dynamics of natural processes. Some of these difficulties stem from the difference between the data and models involved in the various processes to be integrated. The focus of this study is the development of a decentralized spatial decision support tool for forest management planning based on cellular automata (CA) modeling. An innovation of this model is that beyond spatially allocating/simulating management activities, the CA rules and state space are modified to allow cells to co-evolve until a plan for all periods of the planning horizon has been achieved. The object-oriented implementation of the CA model in a geographic information system (GIS) is presented as a decentralized bottom-up forest planning approach. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis of the model outcomes to spatial resolution and objective weights is performed. This planning tool effectively addresses local spatial constraints (limitation on the type of management depending on location), global spatial objectives (spatial clustering of old growth conservation areas), global aspatial objectives (timber harvest) and global constraints (stable flow and minimum old growth conservation). The capability of this approach to consider spatial relationships in the strategic planning process is illustrated by a spatially consistent allocation of clustered old growth areas. The object orientation of the implementation permits a fast computation of both local and global limitations on local decision making. This framework allows speedy modification of either local or global requirements and is highly portable to other complex planning problems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The spatial distribution of forest management activities has become increasingly important with, most notably, rising concerns for biodiversity. Addressing both timber production and non-timber goals requires planning tools that support spatially explicit decision-making. The paper examines the capability of a co-evolutionary cellular automata (CA) approach to address forest planning objectives that are both spatial and temporal with global constraints. In this decentralized self-organizing planning framework, each forest stand and its associated management treatment over the planning horizon is represented as a cellular automaton. The landscape management goals are achieved through a co-evolutionary decision process between interdependent stands. A novel, computationally efficient CA algorithm for asynchronous updating of stand states is developed. The specific problem considered in the paper is maximization of cumulative harvest volume and amount of clustered late-seral forest. The global constraints considered are stable harvest flow and minimum amount of late-seral stands in each period of the planning horizon. Applied to a test area from the Northeastern forest region of Ontario, Canada, the model demonstrates short computation time and consistent results from multiple runs. It also compares favorably with outputs from a simulated annealing search. The CA-based algorithm developed in the paper successfully identifies sustainable forest outputs over the planning horizon. It shows sensitivity to both local constraints, strategic goals and strategic constraints and generates spatially explicit forest plans. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper, creation of carbon offset and emission reduction credits are examined from the perspective of the Little Red River Cree Nation (LRRCN), a forest tenure holder in northern Alberta. Carbon credits are produced under three scenarios: (1) carbon uptake in forest ecosystems, with postharvest waste left on site; (2) carbon uptake in forests and products; and (3) carbon uptake in forests with harvested fiber used for energy production. A mathematical programming model is used to solve for the minimum prices that cause the LRRCN to include production of carbon credits in its forest management and post-harvest processing strategies. If LRRCN is paid according to its costs of creating carbon credits, it will opt to use fiber for forest products as this provides the greatest earning potential. If LRRCN faces a fixed price for carbon credits, it will produce fiber for generating electricity in lieu of coal as this strategy has the lowest average cost. However, when costs of feedstock transportation and construction of a power plant are taken into account, carbon uptake in biomass and forest products turn out to be more competitive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper, we use compromise programming to solve a multiple-objective land use and forest management planning model. Long- and short- (‘fast’) term carbon uptake, maintenance of structural diversity, and economic (net returns to forestry and agriculture) objectives are simultaneously achieved by minimizing the distance between current objective values and the ideal ones. Two distance metrics are used, representing a risk neutral and highly risk-averse decision maker. An application of the model to public forestland and adjacent private agricultural lands in the (boreal) Peace River region of northeastern British Columbia indicates that both short- and long-term carbon uptake, and maintenance of structural diversity, can be achieved only at the high financial costs. Contrary to earlier studies, we also find conflict between both short- and long-term carbon uptakes and maintenance of landscape structural diversity. Targeting short-term carbon uptake results in the greatest deviation from desired structural diversity, although the deviation is somewhat smaller with respect to the long-term carbon uptake goal. Further, risk neutral and risk-averse decision makers will employ significantly different land use and forest management strategies. Finally, the ‘balanced’ strategy (which underachieves attainment of the ‘ideal’ by the same degree for all objectives) attains diversity targets quite closely, but significantly underachieves economic and carbon objectives. Maximization of the weighted sum of objective deviations results in an ‘average’ strategy that performs much better in attaining carbon objectives, but diversity is sacrificed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]