Benefits and tradeoffs of timber management for wildlife habitat on industrial and nonindustrial private landownerships (Mississippi)

Nonmarketed forest outputs such as clean air and water, recreation, and wildlife habitat need to be measured quantitatively, to allow projections of the economic gains and losses associated with varying amounts of these outputs relative to timber production. Of particular importance to many landowners is the quantity and value of timber production forgone relative to varying amounts of wildlife habitat created.; Scenario planning and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were used to estimate potential economic gains or losses for Mississippi resulting from manipulations of timber growing stock to produce more or less habitat for Northern bobwhite quail (Colinus virginianus), white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), bobcat (Lynx rufus ), Eastern wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) and eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis). Current United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service (USFS), Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data, and 2000 USFS Resource Planning Act (RPA) data were examined using the USFS forest-planning model, Spectrum, and the GIS software ArcView, to determine effects of management options for wildlife habitat in the North Central Hills, Tombigbee Hills, South Central Hills, and Pine Belt physiographic regions of Mississippi.; Baseline scenarios, which maximized Net Present Value (NPV), produced higher Land Expectation Value (LEV) and Equal Annual Income (EAI) values per acre and allocated fewer acres of habitat for all wildlife species in all regions versus managing for wildlife habitat quality. When high quality wildlife habitat was the management objective, improved Northern bobwhite and Eastern wild turkey habitat in the Tombigbee Hills region of the state had the most favorable opportunity costs of any species in any region when compared to NPV maximization in the same region. Low-level Northern bobwhite and white-tailed deer habitat management in the North Central Hills, Central region had the least favorable opportunity costs of all scenarios. Inclusion of fee hunting reduced the cost difference between NPV and wildlife management scenarios in all cases.; Simulations that compare management regimes maximizing NPV and optimum wildlife habitat result in quantitative measures useful for land managers to evaluate tradeoffs inherent in multiple-use management, and potential impacts on both state and regional timber inventories and affected economies.