The optimality of continuous cover versus rotation forestry in the presence of fire risk

Abstract

This paper investigates the optimal harvesting decisions of a fire-exposed forest stand.An economic model is used to determine analytical continuous-time solutions for theoptimal schedule of thinnings and clearcuts. We offer new results by proposing that,while thinnings should be anticipated in the presence of fire hazard, forest rotations donot necessarily need to be shortened and may, under certain conditions, be lengthened.In fact, for sufficiently high levels of risk, clearcut forestry can be suboptimal, leading tothe adoption of a continuous cover regime.