______________________________________________________________________________________________

3.1 Consider the problem of land classification to establish land and stand types for the purpose of forest planning.

(a) What is the difference in the role or use of information about stand types as contrasted to information about stands in forest management planning?

(b) What criteria would you use to decide if you had a good stand-type classification system for a specific forest and planning situation?

______________________________________________________________________________________________

3.2 Suppose an area of 170,000 acres was classified into 18 different land classes for the forested portion and 10 land classes for the nonforested areas. The owner wanted to keep track of these land classes in each of six geographic ranger districts. For the forested classes, the foresters wanted to look at four different silvicultural prescriptions for each land class; the prescriptions could be initiated in any of the next five planning periods. For the nonforested portion, a decision would be made immediately as to which of six alternative land uses each of the nonforested land classes would be assigned in each ranger district. Estimate the size of this planning problem in terms of the number of possible choices (decision variables) that could be made over the entire area.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

3.3 Review the distinction between categorical and in-place information. For each of the following management concerns, indicate what kind of information is needed for decision analysis and one reason for your choice of information.

(a) Evaluating timber yields from different cultural prescriptions applied to different stands and stand types.

(b) Evaluating the impact of harvesting on stream sedimentation.

(c) Deciding what lands can be logged in wet weather.

(d) Evaluating stands as habitat for squirrels.

(e) Evaluating stands as habitat for black bear.

(f) Locating log landings.

(g) Determining total grazing-carrying capacity for domestic livestock.

(h) Selecting stands for thinning.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

3.4 Suppose the Johnsons insisted that there should always be at least 1 acre of good squirrel habitat in every year and that even policy 2 would not provide any after year 9 because the natural stands were breaking down. What would you suggest to satisfy their wishes? Make up some plausible prescriptions, yield tables, and policy rules as needed and develop a worksheet to show how your recommendation would work.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

3.5 Suppose the Johnsons said policy 3 seemed about right but they wanted an equal plantation harvest each year to give the sixth-grade class they taught a regular opportunity to plant and tend plantations. One way to handle this is to relax the cut 1 acre rule and only cut 1/3 of an acre each year. With a 9-year cutting age and 3 acres this would work out to provide a sustainable pine component (Hint: The easiest way to do this would be to add six new columns to the worksheet and treat them as 1/3-acre stand cells).

______________________________________________________________________________________________

3.6 The Johnsons decide to continue with the current policy but they also decide to build a small outdoor pine furniture operation at their home and need at least 8 units of volume from their forest each year, starting in year 1, to supply the needed lumber. Ass this policy rule and see if it can be satisfied. (Hint: You can relax the cut one acre each year rule and spread out the high initial volume in stand 1 over more than one period.)

______________________________________________________________________________________________

3.7 What is the maximum harvest that can be achieve in year 1 under the current policy when allowing less than one acre to be cut each year and given the additional policy rule that the harvest in each year must be equal to or greater than the harvest in the preceding year? (This is a tough problem and requires trial and error tactics and multiple "runs" through the worksheet. Start by doing problem 3.6 to get the hang of splitting harvests and then slowly raise the first period harvest in your trials. Later on you might consider building a linear programming formulation of the Johnsons' problem to see if you could do even better. This is a good contest problem in the class, the prize being up to the instructor.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

3.8 Think about how you might use modern graphic computer technology to provide dynamic pictorial representations of how the Johnsons' forest develops over time under different management policies. Would one of the stand visualization programs work?

______________________________________________________________________________________________

3.9 Make up habitat suitability ratings scales for two additional animals. The first should be for an animal that likes open stands with sizes 1 and 2 and sparse to low densities and the second or an animal that likes mid sizes 3 and 4 and medium density stands. Then develop a 0-10 rating scale for the habitat types found on the Johnsons forest. The develop habitat rating yield tables and add them beside the squirrel rating column of the three yield tables. You can use the three worksheets presented for the three policies and simply add the ratings for the new species to the cells. When all this is done, evaluate the multispecies suitability of the policies, identify the trade-offs apparent, and discuss the implications of your results to management of this property.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

3.10 List and discuss some of the likely political feasibility issues that might emerge to impact the management of the Johnsons' property. Assume the land is located some 20 miles from a growing metropolitan area with a mix of neighbors ranging from long-term rural farmers to reclusives to some expensive homes being built by wealthy urban folks trying to find a peaceful place to live. There are the usual interest groups following forest activity and use and local, state and federal environmental protection laws apply.