A linear programming approach to evaluating forest management alternatives

The methodology and the appropriateness of adapting the linear programming model to the evaluation of timber harvest alternatives of a specific forest enterprise was examined. The use of linear programming to describe a program in which profit is maximum rather than one of several other economic allocation models was justified. The basic model, using 3 percent as the alternative rate, described the alternative thinning and harvesting opportunities for the Seward Forest at Triplett, Virginia. The optimum program had to satisfy the restrictions imposed by scarce resources and by personal management constraints. The solution of the model described a course of action for the forest manager for the next 50 years. The initiation of the optimum plan would result in maximizing total present worth to the fixed resources of the Forest. Changes were made in the constraints on the model to demonstrate their effect upon the combination of activities which comprise the optimum program and the effect of these constraints on present worth. Additional solutions at 6 percent and 10 percent alternative rates were made to demonstrate the change which occurs in the activities that describe the optimum program at successively higher alternative rates.