Applications of visual magnitude in forest planning: A case study

Recent impacts from the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic, the lack of available timber in areas of lower elevation, and the reduction in back-country timber has pushed forest operations into publicly significant and visible landscapes. When these become the stage for operations they can be a source of public backlash. These kinds of landscapes are carefully protected by governments, yet, this protection may reduce timber availability. We have developed a new GIS-based tool to aid planners in designing harvests in these areas. Our tool is applied to three case studies in British Columbia to showcase how it can reduce planning time, increase timber availability and limit the negative visible effects of operations.