Since I do much research in the area of forest economics, this page is designed to provide some information in that regard.
Mass Timber and Shortages of Harvest
BC is hoping to becoming a leader in the production of mass timber for use in construction in place of steel and concrete. It appears there is a shortage of available logs as annual harvests have declined from some 70 million to 47.1 million cubic meters (2022) in the past 15 years, although sustainable harvests determined by mean annual increment (sustainable annucal growth) has remained high. Could the reduction in harvests explain increases in wildfire? Something to study.
Forest Management and Carbon
Video describing a forest management model written in GAMS. The model requires information on sites within a forest and uses this information, along with growth and yield data, to determine how the forest will be managed so that the landowner/forest tenure holder maximizes the benefits from sale of commercial timber plus carbon benefits (via a subsidy for carbon dioxide removals and a tax for carbon emitted to the atmosphere as CO2).
Biodiversity
To protect wild areas, it appears that environmental groups are willing to sacrifice the most vulnerable. What has happened to the protection of indigenous groups? See a Dutch report on the matter. Indigenous groups and many others need protection from governments that are more interested in protecting the environment than people.
Forestry Trade
The Canada-U.S. Softwood Lumber dispute continues. Along with graduate students and people in the federal and provincial governments, I have developed a number of trade models. One is a 21-region global log-lumber trade model that has been extended to more products to examine the global impacts on wood products of increased demand for wood biomass as a renewable energy source to generate electricity. (Go to the ‘Trade’ tab on this website.) One issue concerning Canada-U.S. trade relates to the appropriate conversion factor to use in going from cubic meters (which most of the world uses) to board foot measure (employed only in the U.S.). While the ratio 2.36 cu m = mbf, where mbf refers to 1,000 board feet, is commonly used as a conversion, this is an error as these links (link1, link2, link3, link4 demonstrate. Random Lengths also provides a table of conversions.