Endangered species, real options, and forest management

Abstract We use a real option approach to determine optimally when a social planner has to stop or resume logging in situations where an endangered species relies on forest habitat for its survival, and that habitat evolves stochasticly. The model incorporates economic, ecological and social feature...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PAMM
Main Authors: Abdallah, Skander Ben, Lasserre, Pierre
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2007
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pamm.200701097
https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Fpamm.200701097
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/pamm.200701097
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Summary:Abstract We use a real option approach to determine optimally when a social planner has to stop or resume logging in situations where an endangered species relies on forest habitat for its survival, and that habitat evolves stochasticly. The model incorporates economic, ecological and social features, and is calibrated to generate an optimal forest management rule that balances the benefits from commercial forest exploitation with the risks of extinction facing the endangered species. For the reasonable parameters used in our application to the Rangifer tarandus caribou, an endangered species in Central Labrador (Canada), the policy of banning logging temporarily is quite attractive as it does not require long banning periods while it drastically reduces the extinction risk and increases forest value. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)