The impacts of changes in federal timber harvest on forest carbon sequestration in western Oregon

Abstract

This study examines the potential impacts of changes in federal timber harvest, acting through regional log markets, on the sequestration of carbon in forests and forest products in western Oregon. We construct a dynamic model of the region’s log markets in which market prices, log consumption at mills, and timber harvests and timber inventories on private, federal, and state forests are endogenous. Absent any policies regulating forest carbon sequestration, simulations show that regional carbon flux in forests and forest products would gradually decline as federal harvest rises from recent historical levels. If regional forest carbon flux were constrained to meet some minimum target, however, projections indicate that there would be opportunities for substituting carbon sequestration between federal and nonfederal lands through coordination of harvests across ownerships. We find that relatively small reductions in average private harvest could offset substantial losses of carbon flux on federal timberlands caused by increased federal harvest. One mechanism for achieving the changes needed in private harvest to meet a regional carbon flux target would be a carbon tax/subsidy program or a carbon offset market. For example, if federal owners offered timber for sale equal to the maximum sustainable level under the Northwest Forest Plan, our analysis indicates that a carbon price of roughly $US 19 per tonne of carbon would be sufficient to induce private owners to undertake the harvest and management modifications necessary to maintain regional forest carbon flux at its level in the early 2000s.