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Optimal harvesting strategies for timber and non-timber forest products in tropical ecosystems

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Abstract

Harvesting wild plants for non-timber forest products (NTFPs) can be ecologically sustainable–without long-term consequences to the dynamics of targeted and associated species–but it may not be economically satisfying because it fails to provide enough revenues for local people over time. In several cases, the same species can be harvested for NTFP and also logged for timber. Three decades of studies on the sustainability of NTFP harvest for local people’s livelihood have failed to successfully integrate these socio-economic and ecological factors. We apply optimal control theory to investigate optimal strategies for the combinations of non-lethal (e.g., NTFP) and lethal (e.g., timber) harvest that minimize the cost of harvesting while maximizing the benefits (revenue) that accrue to harvesters and the conservation value of harvested ecosystems. Optimal harvesting strategies include starting with non-lethal NTFP harvest and postponing lethal timber harvesting to begin after a few years. We clearly demonstrate that slow growth species have lower optimal harvesting rates, objective functional values and profits than fast growth species. However, contrary to expectation, the effect of species lifespan on optimal harvesting rates was weak suggesting that life history is a better indicator of species resilience to harvest than lifespan. Overall, lethal or nonlethal harvest rates must be <40 % to ensure optimality. This optimal rate is lower than commonly reported sustainable harvest rates for non-timber forest products.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by fellowships from the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF Grant # EF-0832858). OGG was supported by a start-up Grant from the College of Natural Sciences at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. We are grateful to Robert McElderry, Lalasia Bialic-Murphy, and anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Botany, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA

    Orou G. Gaoue

  2. Universite de Parakou, 123, Parakou, Benin

    Orou G. Gaoue

  3. National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Jiang Jiang & Suzanne Lenhart

  4. Department of Mathematical Sciences and Computational Science Program, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN, 37132, USA

    Wandi Ding

  5. Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 66045, USA

    Folashade B. Agusto

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  1. Orou G. Gaoue
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  2. Jiang Jiang
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  4. Folashade B. Agusto
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  5. Suzanne Lenhart
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Correspondence to Orou G. Gaoue.

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Gaoue, O.G., Jiang, J., Ding, W. et al. Optimal harvesting strategies for timber and non-timber forest products in tropical ecosystems. Theor Ecol 9, 287–297 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12080-015-0286-4

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