Traditional Sustained Yield Management: Problems and Alternatives

Sustained yield has been a tenet of faith among foresters since forestry emerged as a profession. The concept developed during feudal times when foresters were primarily gamekeepers for landed aristocracy. When the industrial revolution put new demands on forests for fuelwood, foresters extended their "bag limits" to the trees, based on the perception that unregulated markets would result in forest devastation. Early foresters believed that governments must own or regulate forests to perpetuate timber resources. This belief is the basis for extensive public forests today in Canada, the United States and elsewhere. The vision of the early foresters was not reality, but many still cling to their erroneous notions.Markets can and do provide far better information than any sustained yield model about how forests should be managed. Net present value maximization without any sustained yield harvest flow constraints provides a superior way to manage forests and subjects the vision needed to plan for today and tomorrow to meaningful reality checks. Sustained yield constraints greatly distort attempts to measure the effects of alternative management practices for both timber and non-timber outputs.