Assessing costs and benefits of pest management on forested landbases in eastern and western Canada

Abstract

JEL classification: Q23 Q28 Q00 Keywords:Spruce budworm Decision support system Timber product value Protection costs Insecticide use Benefit/cost ratio Net present value a b s t r a c t To assist pest management planning, the Canadian Forest Service developed the Spruce Budworm Decision Support System (SBW DSS), which quantifies the timber supply impacts of protecting stands against spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana Clem.) defoliation. We incorporated protection costs and timber product values in this system to evaluate economic aspects of spruce budworm control. The analysis allows pest managers to evaluate the degree to which the traditional volume protection priority objective corresponds to three economic criteria, namely the volume protected per dollar protection program cost, the benefit-cost ratio of the protection program, and the net present value of the protection program. Twelve alternative spruce budworm protection strategies were analyzed on Crown License 1 in New Brunswick and Prince Albert Forest Management Area (PAFMA) in Saskatchewan, based on a number of protection program extents and intensities. For both landbases under basecase market conditions, the largest, most intensive protection scenario provided the highest amount of volume saved and net present value (at 3.94 Mm 3 and $39.98 M for PAFMA, and 4.04 Mm 3 and $41.49 M for License 1, respectively) while smaller, less-intensive programs provided the highest benefit-cost ratios and volume protected per present value dollar of protection cost (at 8.22 and 0.52 m 3 /$ for PAFMA, and 10.26 and 0.65 m 3 /$ for License 1, respectively). Sensitivity analysis on product values and protection costs revealed that smaller, less-intensive programs could also produce the highest net present values when costs are higher and/or product values lower. These results highlight the conditions under which pest managers should consider deviating ARTICLE IN PRESS

The economics of carbon sequestration through pest management: application to forested landbases in New Brunswick and Saskatchewan, Canada

“…Up until now, the SBW DSS produced maps based upon marginal timber supply benefits of protection, but now carbon priority maps are also available. The distribution of carbon losses tended to follow quite closely to volume losses discussed in Slaney et al (2009). This similarity was expected since merchantable volume was the basis for carbon content estimations within CBM-CFS3.…”

“…Following methods described in Neilson et al (2007), the carbon content in each stand type on each landbase was summed by 5-year age classes to derive carbon yield curves by age. Carbon yields were then inputted into the SBW DSS, similarly to how volume yield curves were entered, to estimate marginal budworm defoliation-caused carbon losses for each landbase at the scheduled time of harvest (methods were similar to those described by Slaney et al (2009) for timber volume and wood products). Marginal carbon losses were converted into CO 2 losses using the molecular conversion factor of 3.67 (IPCC, 2000).…”

Valuing conservation benefits of disease control in wildlife: A choice experiment approach to bovine tuberculosis management in New Zealand's native forests

“…However, non-market benefits, such as improved environmental outcomes are difficult to monetise and so are usually ignored (Shwiff et al, 2013). Whilst perhaps secondary to commercial imperatives (Slaney et al, 2010), omission of these benefits may lead to significant undervaluation of response programmes (Holmes et al, 2009;Rosenberger et al, 2012). To overcome this, numerous studies have used non-market valuation (NMV) to estimate (for example) recreation values associated with forest resources (Riera et al, 2012), but there are few estimates of the non-market benefits from management of invasive species (Meldrum et al, 2013) or of public willingness to pay for protection and/or enhancement of forest biodiversity (Czajkowski et al, 2014;Giergiczny et al, 2015).…”

Chemical control in forest pest management

“…One effect of this change was an increase in research into the environmental effects of pesticides, including non-target impacts (e.g., Table 1). Other work has examined the public's willingness to pay for insect control in forests (MacDonald et al 1997), general attitudes among the public on forest pest control (Chang et al 2009) and the economic costs and potential benefits of forest pest control (e.g., Slaney et al 2009Slaney et al , 2010). There does not appear to have been any recent assessments of the public policy implications of forest pest management using modern chemical controls and modern tactics (e.g., B.t., tebufenozide, or azadirachtins) or the use of chemical controls in the urban forest; or the use of chemical controls against invasive species.…”