Browsing by Subject "Timber"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    A National Strategy to Increase the Efficacy of Timber Enforcement at U.S. Borders
    (2020-04-24) Aziz, Naimah
    Since 1900, the United States has relied on the Lacey Act to protect wildlife from unsustainable and illegal exploitation via the enforcement of tribal, state, and foreign laws. In 2008, Congress amended the Lacey Act to offer the same protection of plants including timber and wood products. Albeit, over a decade since enactment, on the ground enforcement of the Lacey Act Amendments is still in the early stages. This capstone explores leadership in wildlife conservation and proposes a plan to optimizes the enforcement of the Lacey Act Amendment at U.S. ports of entry. The final project is a national strategy that increases collaboration between border inspection agencies to close enforcement gaps and creates a workflow plan for timber inspections in an effort to combat timber trafficking. Using the resources provided in the strategy, border law enforcement officers can more effectively identify and inspect high-risk shipments.
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    Accessing the viability of HTR - Indonesia's community-based forest plantation program
    (2009-04-24T18:19:10Z) Schneck, Joshua
    In Indonesia, development of sustainable supplies of timber has failed to keep pace with industrial demand. After decades of overharvesting and clearing to bridge supply gaps, Indonesia’s forests and forest industries are in a crisis, with declining stocks of timber to support forest-dependent livelihoods and biodiversity, and large recurring emissions of atmospheric CO2 linked to deforestation. The Indonesian Government’s strategy of providing incentives to developers of large-scale industrial timber plantations has been of limited success, with only 30% of state targets reached after nearly twenty years of work. Difficulties can be traced to conflicts over land rights at the community level, and the limited financial viability of plantation investments in markets distorted by illegal and cheaply-priced wood supplies. In an effort to address these obstacles, the Indonesian Government introduced a new community-based plantation program in 2007, Hutan Tanaman Rakyat (HTR), which affords local communities rights and incentives for developing timber plantations on community lands. Country-wide targets for HTR are substantial, with 5.4 million hectares of plantations planned, however substantial challenges lie ahead in identifying suitable areas of land, creating effective institutional arrangements, and ensuring economic viability. Here, we examine the financial viability of developing pulpwood plantations under HTR at 22 proposed sites in West Kalimantan, and consider challenges to implementing HTR on the ground by surveying a local plantation company operating under a partnership model similar to the kind proposed for HTR. Investments in all 22 sites yield negative net present values, indicating HTR is not profitable under current market conditions. Results suggest HTR may be best facilitated by accompanying macroeconomic and forest-sector policies which reduce market distortions, improve market transparency and liquidity, and raise domestic log prices.
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    Effective Instruments for Timber Investment Management Organizations (TIMO) Cooperation with Conservation Groups
    (2007-11-30T20:16:42Z) Yancey, Herbert
    Forestry in the United States has changed rapidly in the past 20 years. Ownership of private forest land has changed from Integrated Forest Products Firms (IFP) to smaller landowners and investors. TIMOs have proliferated and purchased land rapidly following the sale of many IFP tracts. With the bevy of land sales, conservation groups have taken notice and have also been trying to obtain land, through fee sales as well as conservation easements in order to protect and prevent the rapid development that has replaced many traditional forest lands. One of the more interesting phenomena that has occurred amidst these swift changes in ownership and status of forestlands is the partnership between strictly for profit TIMOs and non-profit conservation groups to obtain adequate returns to investors yet preserve working landscapes and prevent development. Interviews with fifteen TIMO and conservation group managers (seven TIMO executives, seven conservation group specialists, one retired individual that worked for both entities) was able to provide insight into the motivation for these agreements, nature of the relationships, management objectives, and areas for further research. Issues investigated in this paper include, structure of agreements, easements, emerging markets, profit shelters for non-profits, Conservation TIMOs, the future for TIMO holdings, and conservation labeling.
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    Evaluating the Relationship Between Timber and Forage Yields in a Loblolly Pine-Switchgrass Silvopastoral System
    (2020-04-22) Carroll, Colin
    As forest and agricultural landowners look to increase revenue streams and diversify risk, agroforestry systems could be viable land use options. Silvopasture is an agroforestry system that integrates the production of timber and livestock. Silvopasture is practiced globally and has great potential in the US South. Implementation of silvopastoral systems can vary, depending on landowner objectives. This investigation focuses on the relationship between timber (loblolly) and forage (switchgrass) yields for a non-industrial private landowner in Robeson County, NC. Managing for both silvopasture products presents establishment challenges and a nuanced understanding of how tree growth will affect forage yields over time. With careful planning, it appears that a silvopastoral system can be designed in which landowners can meet their objectives and balance yields from both products. In addition, the achievement of financial diversification through integration of both systems might be possible.
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    Stumpage Price Impacts on Carbon Accumulation
    (2021-04-30) Ruan, Leyi; Scofield, Evan
    California’s Cap-and-Trade program, created by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), allows large-scale polluters in the state to partially offset their greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing carbon offset credits. Although there are several types of allowable credits, by far the most common are credits generated by forest carbon projects. These projects require landowners to demonstrate that their forests are storing carbon at levels that exceed what CARB has determined to be the Common Practice Baseline for the associated ecological region and forest type. CARB does not disclose its procedure for calculating these baselines, but it is known to use data collected by the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program. Forest carbon offset developers like our client, Bluesource LLC, rely on the CARB baselines and data on forest carbon stocking levels to identify potential development opportunities. In this report, we seek to determine if CARB baselines and FIA carbon levels can be predicted by prices received by forest owners for their timber, otherwise known as stumpage prices. Previous studies have demonstrated a theoretical effect of stumpage prices on timber harvests, hence on aboveground forest carbon levels, but none has modeled the empirical relationship between stumpage prices and either the CARB baselines or FIA carbon levels. The first section of this report provides an overview of the carbon market in California, focusing on how forest carbon offsets are developed by third-party organizations like Bluesource. This section also states our three research questions: 1. Can stumpage prices be used to explain CARB baselines? 2. Can stumpage prices be used to explain FIA aboveground carbon levels? 3. If the answers to questions 1 and 2 are affirmative, can the associated statistical models be used to predict future CARB baselines and FIA carbon levels? The second section describes the work done to collect data on stumpage prices from Maine, Michigan, and West Virginia, the CARB baseline report from 2011 and 2015, and the FIA carbon data from the same three states. There were significant differences in the reporting styles of the various datasets, so this section also explains how the data were cleaned and reformatted in preparation for our analyses. It provides as well some descriptive statistics to orient the reader on data characteristics. The third section describes the methods undertaken in our analyses. We used regression models to examine the relationship between stumpage prices and both the CARB baselines and the FIA carbon levels. Because the CARB and FIA data differ in the years in which they are reported, so to do the analysis methods. The CARB analysis utilized a cross-sectional regression, whereas the FIA analysis utilized a panel analysis. Beyond stumpage prices, we tested the effects of a number of other explanatory variables in each analysis and ultimately selected two models to be used to project future CARB baselines and FIA carbon levels. The model results and the results of their projections are also included in this section and are shown using maps of the expected percentage increase for each geographic region of our study. The fourth and final section highlights the implications of our findings both to our client and to the relevant literature. We also acknowledge limitations of our models and offer suggestions of how the models could be improved and adjusted for use in other geographic regions. Although stumpage prices influence forest owner harvesting behavior and thus forest carbon levels and CARB baselines too, they likely do not capture all forces influencing landowners’ forest management decisions. A more sophisticated model with more complete data may have greater predictive capability. This report makes several key points and recommendations: • Stumpage prices can be used as predictors of both CARB baselines and FIA carbon levels. • The models we developed could be improved by including more complete stumpage price data from the study region, including sales from both public and private forests instead of only one or the other. • The effects of other variables should be investigated, particularly interest rates and price trends (vs. price levels). • Analyzing the effect of FIA carbon levels on CARB baselines may provide a more direct way to project future CARB baselines. • These models are applicable only to Maine, Michigan, and West Virginia, but the methods used can be replicated for any region with similar data.