A value-added forest management policy reduces the impact of fire on timber production in Canadian boreal forests

When fire rates are sufficiently high, fire disturbances can have negative impacts on industrial timber supplies. One can mitigate such problems at the strategic level by accounting for potential fire losses in the timber supply planning process by reducing harvest levels to maintain a buffer stock of timber. With a forest planning model based on a timber volume maximizing policy, reducing the harvest level will lead to a reduction in the harvested timber volume and likely, of revenues. One possible solution is to change the policy to increase the value of the wood that is harvested so as to minimize such reductions with less risk. We have evaluated alternative policies for three commercially-managed forests that have different burn rates in northeastern Canada. When compared with a volume-maximization policy, a revenue-maximization policy that considers sustained production and the sale of sawmilling wood products (lumber, chips and sawdust) increased mean revenues by 130% (36–770%) with >0.90 probability and substantially decreased the area and volume harvested by 27% (11–38%) and 28% (14–36%), respectively. By reducing the harvest volume, the total number of jobs associated with forest operations decreased by 20% (10–27%) but the number of jobs per unit area harvested and volume increased. The policy also increased the harvest age and thereby enhanced the retention of a greater proportion of old-growth stands. Our study indicated that a tighter link between strategic planning and wood product processing helped identify better compromises between harvesting activities and revenues, despite the occurrence of natural disturbances.