Harvest scheduling with spatial wildlife constraints: An empirical examination of tradeoffs

The impact of imposing spatial wildlife constraints on long-range timber management schedules is examined for a public forest in northern Virginia under varying levels of a wildlife habitat constraint. Linear programming-based timber management scheduling models are solved using (1) standard linear programming, (2) mixed-integer programming with computer-determined stand allocations, and (3) mixed-integer programming with predetermined stand allocations in order to determine the extent to which the failure to consider explicitly the spatial aspects of a forest management problem with wildlife concerns may lead to an overestimation of timber production capacity. Findings indicate that present net value is overestimated by 1·8% to 21·4% and annual sawtimber harvest volume is overestimated by 2·6% to 13·5% when the standard linear programming approach is used.