Joseph, Swope 20150401 Northern Arizona University Optimizing Forest Ecosystem Services and Carbon Stocks in Arizona Presented By: Ching-Hsun Huang, Ph.D. School of Forestry Northern Arizona University The forest management goals in Arizona are to increase income, to increase carbon storage in the forests, to recover endangered species and enhance the habitat of game species, to reduce fire hazard, provide recreation opportunity and build roads with as little environmental impact as possible. These goals have good intentions but make it hard for progress to be evaluated since the goals are very broad in their wording. More specific goals can provide a much more direct vision of what is trying to be accomplished such as setting income goals to reach in a time period or increase the number of an endangered species by a set percentage. To better serve the ecosystems around us the groups and …show more content…
These goals not only need to be direct but also need to be optimized. Goals can be optimized by specifying what a specific projects impact on the environment is, what resources the project will consume such as time and income, and prioritized by what will give maximum value. Another large issue with having well categorized and prioritized goals has to deal with conflicting goals. Two major goals that conflict are reducing fire hazard while also maximizing carbon. The way this is done is by looking at the two most viable options to each problem; the first option being taking no action at all and the second being the optimal solution. The optimal solution needs to provide significant fire risk reduction to make it a viable option over the inverse of doing nothing. But also needs to be as minimally effected by the increase of carbon storage. As carbon storage levels are optimized those figures need to be put into account when considering the fire