Fuelwood harvesting in Niger and a generalization of Faustmann's formula.
In some forests of Niger where 'controlled rural markets' have been organized, fuelwood is harvested following a policy of the form: every T year, cut the dead trees and those live trees which have a diameter greater than D. Dead trees generally form the main part of the harvest. In this paper, we present a simple continuous time model for the management of these uneven-aged stands subject to a high natural death rate alpha, and we derive a formula for the cycle length and the diameter optimizing the discounted income over an infinite horizon. Faustmann's classical formula for even-aged stands corresponds to the limit alpha --> 0 and D = 0 (clear-cut).
Bacaër
Nicolas
N
Institut de recherche pour le développement, 32, avenue Henri-Varagnat, 93143 Bondy cedex, France. bacaer@bondy.ird.fr
Bah
Alassane
A
Mahamane
Ali
A
D004736:Energy-Generating Resources / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009548:Niger; D014934:Wood