The Costs and Benefits of Intensive Forest Management

Abstract

This paper presents an approach for studying the socio-economic benefits and costs (CBA) of the introduction of intensified management measures in forestry. Besides from valuation of changes in timber production, assessments of different types of externalities are included in the assessment. The model is exemplified with the use of data from a Swedish governmental study undertaken in 2009 which present impacts on the Swedish forest sector if intensified management measures are applied on environmentally low-valued land and abandoned agricultural lands. The CBA shows that intensified management measures typically are private financially profitable. If these measures also become profitable from the society’s point of view depend on the size of the external effects including carbon balance.