Roger A. Sedjo

Returning forests analyzed with the forest identity

Amid widespread reports of deforestation, some nations have nevertheless experienced transitions from deforestation to reforestation. In a causal relationship, the Forest Identity relates the carbon sequestered in forests to the changing variables of national or regional forest area, growing stock density per area, biomass per growing stock volume, and carbon concentration in the biomass. It quantifies the sources of change of a nations forests. The Identity also logically relates the quantitative impact on forest expanse of shifting timber harvest to regions and plantations where density grows faster. Among 50 nations with extensive forests reported in the Food and Agriculture Organizations comprehensive Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005, no nation where annual per capita gross domestic product exceeded

Boreal Forests and Tundra

4,600 had a negative rate of growing stock change. Using the Forest Identity and national data from the Assessment report, a single synoptic chart arrays the 50 nations with coordinates of the rates of change of basic variables, reveals both clusters of nations and outliers, and suggests trends in returning forests and their attributes. The Forest Identity also could serve as a tool for setting forest goals and illuminating how national policies accelerate or retard the forest transitions that are diffusing among nations.

Forest Management, Conservation, and Global Timber Markets

The circumpolar boreal biomes coverca. 2 109 ha of the northern hemisphere and containca. 800 Pg C in biomass, detritus, soil, and peat C pools. Current estimates indicate that the biomes are presently a net C sink of 0.54 Pg C yr−1. Biomass, detritus and soil of forest ecosystems (includingca. 419 Pg peat) containca. 709 Pg C and sequester an estimated 0.7 Pg C yr−1. Tundra and polar regions store 60–100 Pg C and may recently have become a net source of 0.17 Pg C yr−1. Forest product C pools, including landfill C derived from forest biomass, store less than 3 Pg C but increase by 0.06 Pg C yr−1. The mechanisms responsible for the present boreal forest net sink are believed to be continuing responses to past changes in the environment, notably recovery from the little ice-age, changes in forest disturbance regimes, and in some regions, nutrient inputs from air pollution. Even in the absence of climate change, the C sink strength will likely be reduced and the biome could switch to a C source. The transient response of terrestrial C storage to climate change over the next century will likely be accompanied by large C exchanges with the atmosphere, although the long-term (equilibrium) changes in terrestrial C storage in future vegetation complexes remains uncertain. This transient response results from the interaction of many (often non-linear) processes whose impacts on future C cycles remain poorly quantified. Only a small part of the boreal biome is directly affected by forest management and options for mitigating climate change impacts on C storage are therefore limited but the potential for accelerating the atmospheric C release are high.

Climate change impacts on forestry

This article develops a global timber market model which captures how timber supply reacts to future predicted increases in the demand for timber. Higher future demand is expected to increase prices, increase investments in regeneration, increase establishment of plantations, and expand output. Dynamic market responses imply a greater reliance on plantations in productive regions, allowing large areas of natural forest in low-valued regions to remain largely intact. Sensitivity analysis suggests that price, harvest, and management are most sensitive to the rate of demand increase, the interest rate, the cost of plantations, and access costs of natural forests. Two forest conservation strategies are examined which predict the system-wide implications of forest conservation in Europe and North America. The policies indicate that whereas set asides can induce net conservation, harvests increase elsewhere, particularly in natural forests. Copyright 1999, Oxford University Press.

The economics of managing carbon via forestry: Assessment of existing studies

Changing temperature and precipitation pattern and increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 are likely to drive significant modifications in natural and modified forests. Our review is focused on recent publications that discuss the changes in commercial forestry, excluding the ecosystem functions of forests and nontimber forest products. We concentrate on potential direct and indirect impacts of climate change on forest industry, the projections of future trends in commercial forestry, the possible role of biofuels, and changes in supply and demand.

Voluntary Eco-Labeling and the Price Premium

The purpose of this paper is to assess the existing studies on the economics of using forests as a means of mitigating atmospheric carbon build-up. This assessment addresses conceptual and empirical issues and provides a basis for a comprehensive and cost efficient forest management strategy. Critical needs and opportunities for future research are identified.

The potential of high-yield plantation forestry for meeting timber needs

International environmental organizations propose voluntary eco-labeling as a market incentive to promote industry to operate in an ecologically sustainable and environmentally friendly manner. A microeconomic analysis questions whether voluntary eco-labeling will cause producer profits in a competitive industry to decline and whether eco-labeling will necessarily generate different prices for labeled and unlabeled product. Using wood product as an example, results identify conditions that may exist when firms lose profits, even under a voluntary system, and where existing production constraints may lead to a single price, regardless of labeling. (JEL Q28)

Property Rights, Genetic Resources, and Biotechnological Change

This study examines the performance and potential of intensively managed plantation forests as a source of industrial wood, and their environmental implications. The perspective of the study is global. Although it includes the United States and parts of Europe, much of the focus is on what are called the “emerging” plantation regions — countries largely in the semitropical areas of the southern hemisphere — which have not historically been important wood producers, but are growing in importance as a result of the productivity of their planted forests. The first section of this paper documents the growing importance of plantations as a source of industrial wood since the late 1970s. The study finds that plantations from nontraditional (new) regions have been growing rapidly in size and economic importance, and, thus, have been playing an increasing role as a source of the world industrial wood. Furthermore, experience seems to suggest that plantations are playing an environmentally beneficial role in (1) reducing pressure on greater areas of natural forests and (2) generating positive environmental effects as they replace degraded marginal agricultural lands. The second section of the paper examines the likely role of plantation forests in the future, and includes an assessment of financial, political and environmental considerations. This section pays particular attention to the concerns frequently expressed by environmentalists regarding plantations. Many of the objections directed at forest plantations on environmental grounds appear to ignore the substantial beneficial role of plantations on the environment. Plantations, which are financially very attractive in many locations, offer the potential of meeting large portions of the world industrial wood needs even while reducing substantially the disturbances on large areas of natural forests. This is possible because the very high productivity of plantation forests requires less area to produce industrial wood.

Forests: a tool to moderate global warming

IT is well recognized that wild genetic resources-the genetic constitutions of plants and animals--have substantial social and economic value as repositories of genetic information. Today, genetic information provides direct and indirect inputs into plant-breeding programs, the development of natural products including drugs and pharmaceuticals, and increasingly sophisticated applications of biotechnology.2 Recognition of the potential of wild genetic resources in the development of drugs has led the National Cancer Institute to initiate a massive plant collection project,3 which is a follow-up to an earlier 1970s project that sought to identify drugs effective against a variety of cancers and to look at the immune system effects of various drugs. It is estimated that 70 percent of the 3,000 species known to have anticancer properties are found in the tropical forests.4 In recent years, a number of widely used drugs have been developed from plants, including two important anticancer drugs derived from the rosy periwinkle found in tropical Madagascar. With the recent major breakthroughs in biotechnology, the future potential of these resources seems limitless. Species that have no current commercial application, have useful natural chemicals, or are as yet undiscovered never-

Paying for the conservation of endangered ecosystems: a comparison of direct and indirect approaches

Earths climate may be growing warmer in response to atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases, predominantly but not exclusively stemming from human-induced emissions of carbon dioxide (CO/sub 2/) into the atmosphere. Once in the atmosphere, CO/sub 2/ traps heat that would otherwise radiate into space. Each year the Earths atmosphere takes up approximately 2.9 billion tons of the 4.8 to 5.8 billion tons of carbon that are emitted from various sources. The rest is removed from the atmosphere by natural processes in carbon sinks - places like oceans or forests where carbon is removed from the atmosphere and stored. In addition, changes in land use that have eliminated terrestrial biomass, including tropical forests, have released into the atmosphere the carbon that was captive in the vegetation. Humankind can respond to the prospective global climate change by adapting to the warming, attempting to limit the warming by preventing or mitigating the buildup of atmospheric carbon, or by some combination of the above. Forests can play a critical role in any attempt to mitigate the warming because they are able to capture and store large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere.