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Carbon prices are used to induce forest managers to adopt longer rotation periods, leading to higher carbon sequestration in the ecosystem and storage in harvested wood products. However, national governments can choose whether or not to include emissions from natural disturbances in carbon accounting schemes. Using a stochastic dynamic programming model, we study optimal forest manager behaviour in the presence of natural disturbance risk and under a range of carbon prices, which we then use to calculate the carbon offsets so generated. Excluding such risk results in a reduced ability to use carbon prices to influence forest manager behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the price of carbon is used to incentivize a reduction in the release of CO 2 emissions and an increase in sequestration of CO 2 through forestry activities. Forest managers essentially have two options for increasing carbon sequestration (i.e., creating carbon offset credits): (1) avoid or delay harvest of mature timber; or (2) harvest timber and allow natural or artificial regeneration (with ‘regular’ or ‘seed-selected’ growing stock). A forest management model representative of the southern interior of British Columbia is described and used to examine forest conservation that prevents emissions of CO 2 , and even-flow and commercial harvesting where timber is processed into long-lived wood products that store carbon and residuals for energy. The objective of the model is to maximize net discounted returns to commercial timber operations plus the benefits of managing carbon fluxes. The model tracks carbon in living trees, organic matter, and post-harvest carbon pools. It also includes various parameters related to the weighting of future carbon flows, anticipated price of carbon, whether and to what extent use of biomass reduces fossil fuel emissions from generating electricity or production of non-wood construction materials, et cetera. The results demonstrate that the decision about which forestry activities generate carbon offset credits and how many is essentially a political and not a scientific one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Forestry Chronicle is the property of Canadian Institute of Forestry and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study examines the relation between corporate environmental performance and corporate financial (economic) performance in North America’s forest products industry to determine whether there is a firm-level environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). An unbalanced panel of firm-level observations is constructed using data from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and Environment Canada. The analysis focuses on methanol and formaldehyde emissions because these are the only pollutants for which consistent firm-level data are available in forestry. We find strong evidence of a firm-level EKC. The evidence is considerably weaker if endogeneity related to the effect of past pollution on current pollution or endogeneity resulting from a possible circular relationship between rate of return and pollution is taken into account, although the available time horizon is too short to conclude that endogeneity is a problem. Even so, there remains evidence of a negative relationship between financial performance and environmental performance for formaldehyde. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Forest Research is the property of Canadian Science Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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]

Explores articles and topics related to the contribution of agriculture and forestry sectors to greenhouse gas management in Canada, featured in a 2005 issue of "Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics."