Tyron J. Venn

Accommodating non-market values in evaluation of wildfire management in the United States: Challenges and opportunities

Forests in the United States generate many non-market benefits for society that can be enhanced and diminished by wildfire and wildfire management. The Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy (1995, updated 2001), and subsequent Guidance to the Implementation of that policy provided in 2009, require fire management priorities be set on the basis of values to be protected (including natural and cultural resources), costs of protection, and natural resource management objectives (including beneficial fire effects). Implementation of this policy is challenging because those charged with executing the policy have limited information about the value that society places on non-market goods and services at risk. This paper reviews the challenges of accommodating non-market values affected by wildfire in social cost-benefitanalysisandproposesaneconomicresearchagendumtosupportmoreefficientmanagementofwildfireinthe United States.

Factors influencing large wildland fire suppression expenditures

There is an urgent and immediate need to address the excessive cost of large fires. Here, we studied large wildland fire suppression expenditures by the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service. Among 16 potential non-managerial factors, which represented fire size and shape, private properties, public land attributes, forest and fuel conditions, and geographic settings, we found only fire size and private land had a strong effect on suppression expenditures. When both were accounted for, all the other variables had no significant effect. A parsimonious model to predict suppression expenditures was suggested, in which fire size and private land explained 58% of variation in expenditures. Other things being equal, suppression expenditures monotonically increased with fire size. For the average fire size, expenditures first increased with the percentage of private land within burned area, but as the percentage exceeded 20%, expenditures slowly declined until they stabilised when private land reached 50% of burned area. The results suggested that efforts to contain federal suppression expenditures need to focus on the highly complex, politically sensitive topic of wildfires on private land.

Challenges of socio-economically evaluating wildfire management on non-industrial private and public forestland in the western United States

Non-industrial private forests (NIPFs) and public forests in the United States generate many non-market benefits for landholders and society generally. These values can be both enhanced and diminished by wildfire management. This paper considers the challenges of supporting economically efficient allocation of wildfire suppression resources in a social cost-benefit analysis framework when non-market values are important. These challenges include substantial gaps in scientific understanding about how the spatial and temporal provision of non-market values are affected by wildfire, the limited utility of benefit transfer in wildfire assessment, a lack of studies that have estimated marginal willingness-to-pay to conserve non-market values, violation of consumer budget constraints, and the infeasibility of valuing indigenous cultural heritage. These challenges present serious impediments to adapting price-based decision-support tools to accommodate non-market values and support decision-making consistent with contemporary federal wildfire policy. Departure from the historic range and variability of ecological conditions is proposed as a complementary framework to support wildfire management decisions when non-market values are important on NIPF and public forestland.

Understanding evacuation preferences and wildfire mitigations among Northwest Montana residents

There is currently insufficient information in the United States about residents’ planned evacuation actions during wildfire events, including any intent to remain at or near home during fire events. This is incompatible with growing evidence that select populations at risk from wildfire are considering alternatives to evacuation. This study explores the evacuation preferences of wildland–urban interface residents in Flathead County, Montana, USA. We compare the performance of wildfire mitigation and fuel reduction actions across groups of residents with different primary evacuation preferences. We also explore what factors (e.g. actions, demographics, attitudes towards government, risk perceptions) help explain residents’ preferences for evacuation. Results suggest that relatively high proportions of residents are interested in staying and defending their homes, with smaller proportions favouring evacuation or passively sheltering in their homes during wildfire. Vegetation management behaviour differs significantly among residents with different evacuation preferences, including significantly higher rates of forest thinning among those intending to remain at home and actively defend their residence. Other results suggest that sex, part-time residency, income and attitudes towards loss from fire are statistically associated with differences in evacuation preferences.

Opportunities to utilize traditional phenological knowledge to support adaptive management of social-ecological systems vulnerable to changes in climate and fire regimes

The field of adaptive management has been embraced by researchers and managers in the United States as an approach to improve natural resource stewardship in the face of uncertainty and complex environmental problems. Integrating multiple knowledge sources and feedback mechanisms is an important step in this approach. Our objective is to contribute to the limited literature that describes the benefits of better integrating indigenous knowledge (IK) with other sources of knowledge in making adaptive-management decisions. Specifically, we advocate the integration of traditional phenological knowledge (TPK), a subset of IK, and highlight opportunities for this knowledge to support policy and practice of adaptive management with reference to policy and practice of adapting to uncharacteristic fire regimes and climate change in the western United States.

Potential Specialty Timber Markets for Hardwoods of Western Queensland, Australia

Small volumes of timber from Acacia and Eucalyptus woodlands of western Queensland, Australia, have achieved high prices in specialty timber markets, which has aroused the interest of landholders. A postal survey of 225 domestic and international specialty timber product manufacturers was undertaken to determine current utilisation of these lesser-known species, establish their suitability for various product markets, ascertain desirable timber dimensions and condition, and estimate potential future domestic and international demand. An overall response rate of 31% was achieved. Responses indicated that current utilisation of these timbers is probably not more than 200 m3/yr. Nevertheless, respondents generally indicated that western Queensland hardwoods are highly suited to the manufacture of specialty timber products, including small-scale furniture items, custom knife handles and musical instruments, and that they have high export potential. Some furniture and musical instrument manufacturers indicated they would be willing to pay up to

Economic appraisal of Sirex Wood Wasp (Sirex noctilio) control in Australian pine plantations

3,000/m3 and

Visions and realities for a Wik Forestry Industry on Cape York Peninsula, Australia

30,000/m3 respectively, for small volumes of high-quality appropriately processed western hardwoods. Large, well-directed marketing campaigns will be necessary to expand specialty timber markets for western Queensland hardwoods.

Risk of exotic pests to the Australian forest industry

ABSTRACT Sirex noctilio (Sirex) is an exotic wood wasp and a pest of Pinus that has been in Australia for 65 years. Our study quantified expenditure on Sirex control between 1952 and 2014 through the National Sirex Control program, and costed the impact of three major outbreaks where large-scale tree mortality occurred. We estimate the combined cost of the program and the outbreaks at

An analysis of pest risk and potential economic impact of pine wilt disease to Pinus plantations in Australia

34.5 million (net present value using a 1952 baseline and a 5% discount rate). Expenditure on the program was estimated at