Economic comparison of forest management methods

This study examines forest management behaviour at the estate level by comparing the uneven-age stand and even-age stand management methods. A production function and forest dynamics function are derived for the forest management of a Mexican estate and these functions are analysed. Lastly, the dynamic forest management behaviour is analysed. The production functions exhibit both increasing and decreasing marginal returns to management effort. The dynamics of the growing stock volume are linear functions of the lagged volume and management effort. The even-age stand method is more efficient in the economic sense than the uneven-age stand method. In the context of reasonable sustainability requirements its potential cannot be employed efficiently, which may affect the estate structure, markets for forest management services and inputs, and fluctuation of the forest management activity.