Managing second-growth timber in southeast Alaska for deer habitat and carbon sequestration—informing multiobjective forest planning
| Authors: | Clémence Labarre, David L. Nicholls, Sándor F. Tóth |
| Year: | 2025 |
| Type: | General Technical Report |
| Station: | Pacific Northwest Research Station |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.2737/pnw-gtr-1027 |
| Source: | Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-1027. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 25 p. (Online Only). |
Abstract
The Tongass National Forest has a rich history of serving its inhabitants for thousands of years, providing a variety of ecosystem services. Often, there are competing interests for the limited forest resources that provide the ecosystem services most in demand. In this study, we laid the groundwork for assessing three leading ecosystem services—timber, carbon sequestration, and wildlife habitat (specifically deer habitat). We examined in detail the tradeoffs among these ecosystem services and how stakeholders will use them. We projected the future needs and ecosystem services likely to be in demand, including forest carbon sequestration. We also considered present-day issues, such as the development of wood products infrastructure, and a viable second-growth timber utilization industry.
Today there are diverse stakeholder groups in Alaska, including conservation organizations, Alaska Native corporations, forest-dependent communities, Native villages, and U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service land managers. We found that stakeholders agreed upon a select number of ecosystem services that were most important, and there were feasible ways to minimize tradeoffs among these services with proper planning and management. Some considerations included distance from deer forage to old growth, scheduling of precommercial thinning activities, optimizing road layouts to facilitate mill access, and timing of second-growth timber harvests to maximize yield.
In this study, we reviewed the current state of knowledge of the relations among second-growth timber management, subsistence deer habitat, and carbon sequestration to inform our proposed multiobjective forest planning model. We briefly described the model itself. We also reported our preliminary research findings on an illustrative pilot study in the Thorne Bay area, Prince of Wales Island.