University of Washington's 1740 ha working forest seeks revenue to continue the tradition of training students & demonstrating sustainable forestry in the face of budget cuts. Management plans are offered that contrast level and intensity of harvest and associated ecosystem services. Your bids will inform the real campaign. ECOSEL is a “cloud funding” mechanism that allows individuals or organizations to bid for forest ecosystem services that could be produced on a discrete piece of forestland over a specific period of time. Our slogan “Putting forest management in your hands” represents our goal of allowing public input into forest management—you can make a difference.
Feedback is sought either through the website or e-mail: ettl@uw.edu
SUMMARY
ECOSEL is a “cloud funding” mechanism that allows individuals or organizations to bid for forest ecosystem services that could be produced on a discrete piece of forestland over a specific period of time. Our slogan “Putting forest management in your hands” represents our goal of allowing public input into forest management—you can make a difference.
HOW DOES ECOSEL WORK?
ECOSEL uses optimization tools to identify the most cost-efficient management plans that can lead to bundles (or stacked) forest ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, viewshed protection or old-forest habitat preservation. The desired services are defined by the potential contributors in agreement with the seller (i.e., the forest landowner). Optimization assures that ecosystem services are delivered as cheaply as possible, and optimal solutions are described by a response surface (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Three Pareto-optimal response surfaces showing C (1000 MgC), hectares of mature forest habitat (forest stands > 100 y in 2040), and associated anticipated revenue in Net Present Value (using a 5% discount rate). The red surface represents a clearcut harvest regime that exceeds WA State Forest Practices Legislation as it leaves more green trees than required and mandates an increase in standing C and stand age over the 30-year planning period. The green (65 y rotation), and gray (105 y rotation) display the surfaces of differing rotation lengths of the more conservative (restrictive) Forest Stewardship Council’s Pacific Coast standard. The insert shows the thinning only harvest scenarios (dotted lines), and the apex of all treatments converge in the lower right-hand corner where no harvest is permitted. Note the $NPV can be either positive or negative as we have incorporated discounted expenses into our modeling scenario.
For this Land Campaign we offer 5 potential management plans: A) Maximum harvest, B) Clearcut harvests with establishment of new 100 year-old >40.5 ha habitat reserve, C) Forest Stewardship Council harvests with a 65-y rotation, D) Clearcut harvest with establishment of two new 100 year-old >40.5 ha habitat reserves, and E) a Thinning every 20 years scenario that maintains continuous forest cover. Each management plan details which stands are to be cut in each of six 5-year planning periods and the associated maps detailing which stands will be cut in each period are detailed below. All management plans continue to maintain existing wildlife and streamside habitat reserves, and sets aside some forestry plots for experimental purposes. We also describe the associated ecosystem services that come with the management plans; note that each “Ecofolio” has an associated “Reserve Price” which represents the costs to the landowner for implementing a more conservation-oriented plan.
ECOFOLIO COMPARISON
Table 1. The ECOFOLIOs each come with a different reserve price and associated ecosystem services. The real land campaign (and the ESA presentation) documents more thoroughly differences in ecosystem services. Here we present 3 ecosystem services: Total C stored at the end of the planning horizon, Mature Forest Habitat (> 100 y) beyond initial habitat reserves, and the probability of forest bat habitat under each ECOFOLIO.
* This includes all habitat reserves, whereas all other habitat (ha) are contiguous forest habitat.