The economic impact of green-up constraints in the southeastern United States

Green-up, or adjacency, requirements are a common constraint in forestry. T he American Forest and Paper Association has developed a Sustainable Forest ry Initiative that includes a green-up constraint which limits the average clearcut opening to 48 ha for 3 years or until the average height of the re generated trees is >1.4 m. In addition to constraining the average clearcut size, many forestry companies in the southeastern USA voluntarily limit th eir maximum clearcut size to between 60 and 90 ha. In this research, a heur istic algorithm was used to develop tactical forest plans that consider bot h the maximum and average clearcut sizes. Economic effects of the green-up constraints were estimated for situations where intensive management can re duce the length of the green-up time from 3 to 2 years on a 21 600 ha owner ship in Georgia (USA). For a 60-ha maximum opening size, this reduction in green-up time from 3 to 2 years resulted in an additional US$ 66 600 in pre sent net worth (PNW) over a 10-year analysis period, This corresponds to a US$ 10 per harvested ha, or a 0.8% increase in PNW. The benefit gained by r educing the length of the green-up period is less with a 90-ha maximum clea rcut size, where PNW increases by US$ 45 600, or US$ 6.70 per harvested ha, a 0.5% increase. While the total volume per period was near the volume goa l produced by a strategic forest plan. the spatial restrictions and the des ire to maximize net present value resulted in lower volume of timber produc ts (sawlogs and chip-and-saw logs) from older forest stands. A sensitivity analysis showed that an increase in price or yield further reduced the econ omic incentive fur the reduction of the length of the: green-up constraint. As price or volume decreased below expectations, however, the incentive to use intensive forest management practices to reduce the length of the gree n-up constraint became more attractive, since the differences between a 2-y ear and 3-year green-up time requirement may be large enough to pay for mon intensive management practices. (C). 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.