Heidi J. Albers

The Influence of Markets and Policy on Spatial Patterns of Non-Timber Forest Product Extraction

When villagers extract resources, such as fuelwood, fodder, or medicinal plants from forests, their decisions over where and how much to extract are influenced by market conditions, their particular opportunity costs of time, minimum consumption needs, and access to markets. This paper develops an optimization model of villagers’ extraction behavior that clarifies how, and under what conditions, policies that create incentives such as improved returns to extraction in a buffer zone might be used instead of adversarial enforcement efforts to protect a forest’s pristine “inner core.” (JEL Q23)

Land Cover in a Managed Forest Ecosystem: Mexican Shade Coffee

Managed forest ecosystems—agroforestry systems in which crops such as coffee and bananas are planted side-by-side with woody perennials—are being touted as a means of safeguarding forests along with the ecological services they provide. Yet we know little about the determinants of land cover in such systems, information needed to design effective forest conservation policies. This paper presents a spatial regression analysis of land cover in a managed forest ecosystem—a shade coffee region of coastal Mexico. Using high-resolution land cover data derived from aerial photographs along with data on the geophysical and institutional characteristics of the study area, we find that plots in close proximity to urban centers are less likely to be cleared, all other things equal. This result contrasts sharply with the literature on natural forests. In addition, we find that membership in coffee-marketing cooperatives, farm size, and certain soil types are associated with forest cover, while proximity to small town centers is associated with forest clearing.

Spatial-Endogenous Fire Risk and Efficient Fuel Management and Timber Harvest

This paper integrates a spatial fire-behavior model and a stochastic dynamic-optimization model to determine the optimal spatial pattern of fuel management and timber harvest. Each year’s fire season causes the loss of forest values and lives in the western United States. We use a multi-plot analysis and incorporate uncertainty about fire ignition locations and weather conditions to inform policy by examining the role of spatial endogenous risk—where management actions on one stand affect fire risk in that and adjacent stands. The results support two current strategies, but question two other strategies, for managing forests with fire risk. (JEL Q23)

Protecting Developing Countries' Forests: Enforcement in Theory and Practice

Abstract This paper relates the key findings of the optimal economic enforcement literature to practical issues of enforcing forest and wildlife management access restrictions in developing countries. Our experiences, particularly from Tanzania and eastern India, provide detail of the key pragmatic issues facing those responsible for protecting natural resources. We identify large gaps in the theoretical literature that limit its ability to inform practical management, including issues of limited funding and cost recovery, multiple tiers of enforcement and the incentives facing enforcement officers, and conflict between protected area managers and rural peoples needs.

Optimal spatial patterns of fuel management and timber harvest with fire risk.

The stochastic and spatial nature of fire poses challenges for the cost-efficient allocation of fuel treatment over the landscape. A model that addresses complex but important components of fuel ma...

Irreversible ecosystem change, species competition, and shifting cultivation

This paper explores the impact of resource use on species competition and the resulting effect on the regeneration of a renewable resource. In the case of shifting cultivation, agricultural activities alter the subsequent recovery of biomass during fallow upon which agricultural fertility depends. This paper introduces a model of agricultures impact on species competition and discontinuous ecological change, identifies conditions under which it is economically efficient to induce an ecological irreversibility, and compares these cases for farmers with and without land tenure security.

Valuation and Management of Tropical Forests

This paper develops a framework for the valuation and management of tropical forests that reflects their ecological and economic characteristics. The analysis demonstrates the importance of modeling the feasible use patterns and the information structure in tropical forest management decisions. The model predicts that cases exist where the foresighted management of forests leads to more preservation than the traditional expected value approach. An application in Thailand provides evidence that such cases occur in relevant ranges of benefit flows. The model focuses tropical forest management on assessments of sustainability and feasible sequences in light of uncertainty and information flows.

Could state-level variation in the number of land trusts make economic sense?

The number of land trusts in a state varies widely across the United States. Could such variation make economic sense? This paper models the optimal number of private conservation agents in a region and highlights two competing forces: spatial externalities in conservation that increase the efficiency of having few agents and diversity in conservation goals that means that specialization and de-concentration can be efficient. A state-level, count data analysis indicates that some observed patterns in the numbers of trusts are consistent with patterns expected in the optimal numbers of trusts. Some results identify areas for research and possible policy intervention. (JEL Q24, L31, H41)

Sizing Reserves within a Landscape: The Roles of Villagers’ Reactions and the Ecological-Socioeconomic Setting

Traditionally, siting and sizing decisions for parks and reserves reflected ecological characteristics but typically failed to consider ecological costs created from displaced resource collection, welfare costs on nearby rural people, and enforcement costs. Using a spatial game-theoretic model that incorporates the interaction of socioeconomic and ecological settings, we show how incorporating more recent mandates that include rural welfare and surrounding landscapes can result in very different optimal sizing decisions. The model informs our discussion of recent forest management in Tanzania, reserve sizing and siting decisions, estimating reserve effectiveness, and determining patterns of avoided forest degradation in Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation programs. (JEL Q23)

Wildfire Risk Management on a Landscape with Public and Private Ownership: Who Pays for Protection?

Wildfire, like many natural hazards, affects large landscapes with many landowners and the risk individual owners face depends on both individual and collective protective actions. In this study, we develop a spatially explicit game theoretic model to examine the strategic interaction between landowners’ hazard mitigation decisions on a landscape with public and private ownership. We find that in areas where ownership is mixed, the private landowner performs too little fuel treatment as they “free ride”—capture benefits without incurring the costs—on public protection, while areas with public land only are under-protected. Our central result is that this pattern of fuel treatment comes at a cost to society because public resources focus in areas with mixed ownership, where local residents capture the benefits, and are not available for publicly managed land areas that create benefits for society at large. We also find that policies that encourage public expenditures in areas with mixed ownership, such as the Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003 and public liability for private values, subsidize the residents who choose to locate in the high-risk areas at the cost of lost natural resource benefits for others.