Private Property Rights and Selective Private Forest Conservation: Could a Nordic Hybrid Policy Address a United States Problem?

Political and legal conflicts between the need for targeted private forest conservation and the continued assurance of private property rights in the U.S. presents a seemingly intractable resource management problem. Scandinavian use of habitat protection areas on private forests offers an additional tool that may be suitable for solving the historical and on-going tension found within U.S. efforts to reconcile desires to maintain lands in a forested condition while also respecting private property rights. This article presents a comparative cross-sectional policy analysis of Sweden, Finland, and the U.S., supported with a supplemental case example from the Commonwealth of Virginia. Similarities in all three countries among forest ownership patterns, use of public subsidies, and changing attitudes towards conservation are generally encouraging. Additionally, Virginia’s current consideration and development of state-wide forest policies focused on forestland and open space conservation suggests both a need and an opportunity to systematically assess the applicability of the Nordic forest reserve approach to local private forest conservation. Future research at a high-resolution, and specifically at the state level, should focus on the social and political factors that would ultimately determine the viability of a forest reserve program.     

Vegetation changes associated with barrier-dune construction on the outer banks of North Carolina

Manmade dunes are used to stabilize the barrier islands of the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States so that they are more amenable to development. Although this strategy has stabilized extensive sections of the barrier-island substrate, it has also caused significant ecological changes. The rate and pattern of the resulting vegetation changes along the Outer Banks of North Carolina were determined using sequential aerial photography. Successional trends have been altered in favor of more stable woody communities.     

Evaluating Conservation Program Success with Landsat and SWAT

In the United States, many state and federally funded conservation programs are required to quantify the water quality benefits resulting from their efforts. The objective of this research was to evaluate the impact of conservation practices subsidized by the Oklahoma Conservation Commission on phosphorus and sediment loads to Lake Wister. Conservation practices designed to increase vegetative cover in grazed pastures were evaluated using Landsat imagery and the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). Several vegetative indices were derived from Landsat imagery captured before and after the implementation of conservation practices. Collectively, these indicators provided an estimate of the change in vegetative soil cover attributable to conservation practices in treated fields. Field characteristics, management, and changes in vegetative cover were used in the SWAT model to simulate sediment and phosphorus losses before and after practice implementation. Overall, these conservation practices yielded a 1.9% improvement in vegetative cover and a predicted sediment load reduction of 3.5%. Changes in phosphorus load ranged from a 1.0% improvement to a 3.5% increase, depending upon initial vegetative conditions. The use of fertilizers containing phosphorus as a conservation practice in low-productivity pastures was predicted by SWAT to increase net phosphorus losses despite any improvement in vegetative cover. This combination of vegetative cover analysis and hydrologic simulation was a useful tool for evaluating the effects of conservation practices at the basin scale and may provide guidance for the selection of conservation measures subsidized in future conservation programs.     

Using game theory to describe strategy selection for environmental risk and carbon emissions reduction in the green supply chain

This paper provides an approach in the context of green supply chain management, using game theory to analyze the strategies selected by manufacturers to reduce life cycle environmental risk of materials and carbon emissions. Through the application of the ‘tolerability of risk’ concept, a basis for determining the extent of environmental risk and carbon emissions reduction has been established. Currently, scant attention is given to holistic supervision of the supply chain with respect to carbon emissions by governments, and thus the starting hypothesis here is that the default strategy that manufacturers will adopt is only to reduce carbon emissions, and thereby environmental risk, in so far as this is compatible with the aim of increasing revenue. Moreover, we further hypothesize that, once necessary governmental policy has been established in the supply chain management, the strategic choices of the manufacturers would be influenced by government penalties or incentives. A case example is provided to demonstrate the insight that indicates the application of game theory. The limitations of the game model and analysis are discussed, laying a foundation for further work.