Modeling the compatibility of biological and economic objectives on a forested landscape

An integrated model combining a wildlife population simulation model and timber harvest and growth models was developed to explore the tradeoffs between the likelihood of persistence of a hypothetical wildlife species and timber harvest volumes on a landscape in the Central Oregon Cascades. Simulated annealing, a heuristic optimization technique, was used to solve for harvest schedules that maximized the likelihood of species persistence relative to a given timber harvest volume constraint over a 100 year planning period. By solving this problem for a range of different harvest volumes a production possibility frontier is developed that shows the relative tradeoffs between timber harvest volumes and likelihood of species persistence on this landscape. Although the results are specific to the wildlife species and the landscape analyzed, the approach is general and may provide a structure for future models that will allow land managers and forest planners to become more informed about the tradeoffs among competing resources.