International Research Fellowship Program: Developing a Decision System to Aid Multipurpose Forest Management in Chile

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0601838TothThe International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.This award will support a twelve-month research fellowship by Dr. Sandor F. Toth to work with Dr. Guillermo H. Donoso at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, in Santiago, Chile.The goal of this research is to shed light on the tradeoffs and production possibilities of managing Chile's native forests for multiple, conflicting uses. This is done by building a multi-criteria decision support system for a pilot study site in Southern Chile. The decision system is based on a spatially explicit harvest scheduling model that is formulated as a multi-objective integer program. The study will provide tangible, quantitative tradeoff information for decision makers by finding harvest schedules that are efficient with respect to both timber and a range of non-timber objectives. The non-timber forest benefits considered in this research include carbon sequestration, watershed and wildlife habitat preservation. The information that the proposed decision system would provide will help natural resource professionals in Chile make better decisions and better policies in regard to the management of native forests. Public and private forestry stakeholders will also benefit from an approach that requires them to participate in the planning process, interact, and analyze a wide range of management alternatives in a highly structured fashion. The premise is that this process allows them to gain more insight into the planning problem and, thus to make more informed decisions when selecting the best compromise forest management alternatives.