Setting objectives of sustainable forest management using linear programming. A case study of criteria and indicators accepted at a meeting of Montreal Process countries.

摘要

Thresholds of criteria and indicators accepted in Montreal Process countries were estimated using a linear programming model. The concept of thresholds contains 'allowable range' and a' target value', which mean, respectively, a range of indicatorssatisfying the conditions of sustainable forest management, and the optimum value of indicators in the allowable range. For this study, 4 criteria were selected and tentative indicators were set for each at the national level. Next, the thresholds of theindicators were estimated using the linear programming model. Constraints of the model were mainly set by the requirements for sustainable forest management, that is, that none of the indicators show a decline over the planning horizon. Lastly, an optimum solution was found and a feasible region sought by the method of parametric linear programming; here, the feasible region can be regarded as the allowable range and the optimum solution as the target value. The results showed that the thresholds set were suitable for reflecting the trade-off relationships among the criteria. It is concluded that the concept of threshold is efficient in judging progress towards sustainable forest management.