A landscape perspective on differentiated management for production of timber and nature conservation values

Forestry in Sweden has since long been focused on production of conifer timber, but during the last decades the production of other goods and services has become more pronounced. An example of this shift towards multiple-use forestry can be found in the Swedish Forestry Act stipulating that equal weight should be put on preservation of biodiversity and timber production. The demand on multiple-use forestry to reach multiple goals creates a classical production allocation problem. In this study a method for analysing certain spatial production allocation problems in a forestry context is presented. The method is used to evaluate two different strategies for allocation of timber production and production of nature conservation values. One is the strategy of applying one stand management regime in all stands over a forest, given that it produces both timber and nature conservation. The other is the strategy of applying different stand management regimes over the forest. The results show that the strategy of applying different stand management regimes leads to greater production possibilities for timber and nature conservation values compared to the other strategy. However, if the goals of forestry change towards nature conservation, the use of the differentiated strategy could imply a more restricted planning space for nature conservation in the future.