Carbon sequestration and the optimal management of New Hampshire timber stands

This paper explores the tradeoff between resource extraction and net carbon sequestration in managing representative timber stands in the state of New Hampshire in the northeastern United States. In the absence of policies to promote forest carbon storage, land owners have incentives to employ clear-cut harvesting regimes with relatively short rotation periods. Under conservative assumptions regarding the social benefits of carbon storage, optimal rotation periods are extended by between 16 and 133 years depending on the forest type under consideration. If policy-makers pursued a cost-effective strategy to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at twice the pre-industrial norm, optimal rotation periods would be extended by a full 180–347 years. The analysis suggests that partial harvesting regimes (in which approximately 35% of timber volume is removed at 15-year intervals after the timber stand reaches an initial age of 45 years) provide relatively high net benefits under a variety of circumstances. This finding is relevant because partial harvesting is an accepted and relatively common practice that could be adopted more widely.