Introduction and Context
The article “A Note on Benefits and Costs of Adjusting Forestry to Meet Recreational Demands” is devoted to one of the most important environmental issues of Sweden – logging industry. To be more specific, the Swedish government is concerned with the consequences of the most profitable as well as the most vulnerable sector of the state’s economy. Timber harvesting brings a significant income, but if the state government does not control this activity, it will lead to the global environmental problem of deforestation.
The Swedish community started to express their concerns on this topic relatively recently. The article emphasizes the youth of the state’s forest environmental economics that aims to balance economic purposes and environmental protection.
The purpose of the study is to analyze the costs and benefits of the state’s forestry adjustment to recreational demands. The article overviews previous related studies and gives a summary of those. The main feature of all these studies is that the benefits and costs of forest environmental economic activities are always analyzed separately. Some of the studies give benefit-cost analysis, though. However, these studies compare nature reserve management to industrial forestry.
Science has not considered the benefits and costs of the combination of industrial forestry and environmental protection activities so far. Meanwhile, the current Swedish Forestry Act that presents public demands to foresters requires that the logging industry should be combined with environmental protection. This fact determines the great scientific value of the concerned study because its primary goal is to examine the economic effects of making the logging industry meet recreational demands.
The geographical area that was covered in the research is the Västerbotten County. This county is situated in the northern part of Sweden.
Methods and Data
The given research is based on information that was obtained by two studies. The objectives and evaluation techniques of these two studies were different. The first study that employed the Contingent Valuation Method with continuous and discrete questions was aimed at the estimation of the recreation value of forests in Västerbotten County from the public’s perspective. The second study that presented the comparative analysis of two forestry programs used the results of the first study and forest data that was obtained from the National Forest Inventory.
The information of the first study was obtained in two phases. First, 2000 citizens of the Västerbotten County were asked to evaluate forest recreation regarding the on-site and off-site use of forests. It turned out that the recreation value of Västerbotten County forests was equal to the half of the timber production value. The second phase of the study showed that the recreation value of Västerbotten County forests depends on the kind of forest landscape. As a rule, forest landscape is determined by the silvicultural systems that are applied to its cultivation.
The second study resulted in the comparative analysis of the public valuation of two forestry programs employment. It suggested that the use of a reference program will not change the current forestry, and the use of an alternative program will lead to the necessity to adjust the current forestry to recreational demands. The survey showed that the public considered a reference program as more profitable as the alternative program.
Results and Discussion
The basic result of the study is the estimation and comparative analysis of the benefits and costs of forestry transformation from the referral program to the alternative program. The article presents the current areal distribution of silvicultural systems that are applied in Västerbotten County: natural regeneration using seed trees, single-tree selection, artificial regeneration after clear-cutting, and shelterwood system; and then describes the changes that will occur in this areal distribution if the state forest administration initiates the development of recreational-friendly forestry.
Benefit estimates appear as a result of a comparison of the reference program recreation value to alternative program recreation value. If forestry continues the reference program, then the annual recreation value will be SEK 1361 per citizen. If forestry adjusts to the alternative program, the annual recreation value will increase to SEK 2524 per citizen. If the difference between these values is multiplied by the number of citizens, then the annual benefit of the alternative program will increase to SEK 208,000,000.
The calculations lead to the conclusion that the benefit of recreational-friendly forestry development and forestry transformation from the referral program to the alternative program is three times larger than the cost of this campaign. However, the researchers stress that such benefit is possible on the condition of immediately successful transformation.
If the transformation does not have any positive effect or negatively affects the recreation value in the first 30 years, the benefit will change significantly, even if the transformation starts to increase the recreation value after the period that was mentioned above. Although the researchers do not criticize this point, they admit that the possible decrease in benefit weakens the argument for the forestry transformation from the referral program to the alternative program.
Conclusions and Criticisms
The article criticizes several points of the study. First, the research was concentrated on such silvicultural systems as natural regeneration and artificial regeneration after clear-cutting. Although the study considered such silvicultural systems as single-tree selection and shelterwood system, their examination was not thorough, and that is why further researchers should pay more attention to these forestry measures. Second, since the research was focused on two silvicultural systems and virtually neglected the other ones, forecasts of timber volume cannot be considered as precise. Third, data that was collected and used in the analysis is not fully reliable in the long term.
Preferences of people in forest recreational environments may change over time. For this reason, the research should not fully rely on the results of a survey. Fourth, costs and benefits may be exaggerated. The study does not take into account that the majority of the Västerbotten County population is concentrated in several cities; thus the maintenance of recreational forestry is not needed on the entire territory of the county, and the costs of forestry transformation may turn out to be lower than it is expected. As to exaggerated benefits, the study does not consider the possibility of a marginal value increase that is rather likely to occur if the shelterwood system will be increased from 3% to 34%.
As a recommendation for further research, Bostedt and Mattsson suggest combining economics with other related disciplines, such as “forest production and silviculture, forest management and planning, sociology and geography” (81). Since most forest areas that are situated in close vicinity to cities belong to local municipal structures, then the funding for further research should be provided by these municipalities.
Work Cited
Bostedt, Göran and Leif Mattsson. “A Note on Benefits and Costs of Adjusting Forestry to Meet Recreational Demands.” Journal of Forest Economics 12.1 (2006): 75-81. Print.