Questioning the contemporary forest planning paradigm: making use of local knowledge

Abstract

The forest planning system of large Swedish forest owners follows a three step procedure: long-term, medium-term, and short-term planning. The system is sequential and hierarchical in the sense that longer-term plans form the framework for shorter-term plans, and that top-level management prepares the long range plans and the lower management levels develop plans with successively shorter horizons. Studies indicate that this approach does not fully use existing knowledge within the organization. Problems associated with the top-down approach are also recognized in the general literature on organization and management. A proposal for a bottom-up approach is developed that aim at the use of local level knowledge to enhance accuracy and applicability of the forest plans. After top-level management has issued some fundamental planning directives, medium-term planning is conducted by the districts. Then the district plans are consolidated at the top-level for coordination and revision. A simulated planning process provides an illustration of the approach. The Heureka system is used here to optimize harvests and road costs with a mixed integer programming model of the problem, spanning 10 years with three seasons per year. The importance of detailed local knowledge to the outcome of planning is indicated, and needs for continued decision support systems development is discussed.

Keywords:

• bottom-up planning
• hierarchical planning
• knowledge management
• mixed integer programming
• planning dialog

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank personnel at Sveaskog AB for supplying data and in giving advice. We are also grateful for the inspiration and guidance supplied by Peder Wikström, P.W. Skogsanalys, on modeling issues and Professor Andrés Weintraub, University of Chile, for valuable advice. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for the most valuable suggestions for improvement.

Funding

The project has been supported by Marie Curie project ForEAdapt (269257) and forms part of ERA-NET project RegioPower (22019911).

Additional information

Funding

Funding: The project has been supported by Marie Curie project ForEAdapt (269257) and forms part of ERA-NET project RegioPower (22019911).