| The Ivoirien forest industry has been characterized by a total lack of regulation, planning, and difficulty of reconciling timber removal and replenishment. One of the objectives of this study is to assess the long run timber supply from the natural forests in Cote d'Ivoire and the possibility of incorporating silvicultural activities into forest regulation. The current practice of charging arbitrary fees on volume of timber harvested and then channeling it through a separate management agency has proved inadequate in raising enough funds for management activities. Now the cost of management (reforestation, harvest control, etc..) has been made part of the cost structure of the logging firms.;A multiperiod linear programming model is used to optimize the net present value of timber harvested from the forests by a selected group of logging firms on a regional basis subject to available timber stock and species, the market demand, labor, prices, and other constraints. The model is then used to analyse various management scenarios including reforestation starting from a base case depicting current conditions in the industry.;The results of the base indicate that the industry does generate a high net present value at 5 percent discount rate over 25 years planning horizon. Several management scenarios aimed at controlling the timber stock ranging from ending inventory constraint where a specified amount of the stock is required to remain at the end of the planning horizon to harvest flow constraint where the volume harvested each period is controlled are analyzed. The results indicate that harvest flow constraint spreads harvest evenly while ending inventory constraint does not restrict periodic harvest.;The other important issue in the study is reforestation. While the timber supply from the natural forest is very uncertain in the future, forest plantations appear to be a secure means of future supply. A 348,750 hectares of natural forests produce 1.4 million M... |
