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3.2.5 POTENTIAL BIOMASS SUPPLY BASED ON FOREST GROWTH Previous studies of potential biomass supply in Massachusetts (reviewed in Appendix 3-A) have considered supply to be the maximum volume of low-value wood that could be harvested without reducing timber inventories below current levels. It is useful to compute this estimate to see how it compares with our estimate of biomass supply in the High-Price Biomass scenario. This also provides information as to whether our estimate is “sustainable” when using the criteria that harvests do not exceed net growth and that biomass harvests can be maintained at the same level for the foreseeable future. The calculation of the total “sustainable” volume of biomass that can be harvested in Massachusetts depends critically on how the land area is defined and how net growth is estimated. While there are a variety of ways to make these calculations, here we follow the methodology used by Kelty et al. (2008). We define the land area as the size of the operable land base on private lands, which we have derived to be 1,071,000 acres in the previous section. For the growth rate, we use data from Chapter 5 on the average annual growth of unmanaged “mature” stands in all cover types. The average annual increase in the volume of above-ground live trees over the next 50 years is 1.3 green tons per acre. Thus, the long-term average annual growth (net of mortality) in Massachusetts would be 1.4 million green tons per year. Finally, if we reduce this estimate by 36% to account for timber that would be expected to be consumed as sawtimber (again following Kelty et al., 2008), average annual biomass availability would be 900,000 green tons per year.44 The upper end of our estimate of biomass supply of 850,000 green tons per year in the High-Price Biomass scenario is within the range of what would be considered “sustainable” based on the rule of harvest not exceeding growth, and thus would not result in a reduction of timber inventories across the operable land base. However, our sensitivity analysis of biomass supplies showed some projections as high as 1.2 million green tons per year which would exceed “sustainable” annual volumes as we have defined them here. The discussion of sustainability in this context raises two important theoretical issues. One issue concerns the approach of calculating “sustainable” growth rates using initial inventory levels and fixing the time horizon in the future.45 The majority of the timber inventory in Massachusetts is over 60 years old, and given the shape of the timber yield curves, average timber growth rates are decelerating over time. As a result, the longer the future time span that is selected, the lower the average “sustainable” growth 44 Note that this approach provides a “ballpark” estimate and does not attempt to adjust for logging residues and similar details. Estimates of biomass availability from previous studies using the “forest-growth” approach are discussed in Appendix 3-A. 45 Another approach that is commonly used but beyond the scope of this study is to evaluate the volume of wood that could be produced if the forests of Massachusetts were brought into fully regulated management under optimal rotation ages. Such an approach would likely lead to a higher estimate of long-term timber and biomass supply. rate. We have selected 50 years in parallel with the analysis by Kelty et al. (2008). However, the simple fact that our starting year is 2010—compared to the base year 2000 used by Kelty et al. (2008)—changes the growth trajectory enough to reduce our “sustainable” growth levels compared to their results. The second theoretical issue concerns scale: there is no simple answer to the question of how to define the appropriate land base. If all forest land in Massachusetts were included, the total land area would jump to about 3.0 million acres and average timber growth would be about 4.0 million green tons per year. Using this theoretical approach, it would be feasible to harvest wood much more aggressively on oper- able private lands due to the ongoing increase in timber inventories on public lands and private lands that are not being harvested. 3.3 BIOMASS SUPPLY FROM PUBLIC LANDS IN MASSACHUSETTS This section considers the availability of forest biomass supply from harvesting on public lands in Massachusetts. We first review estimates of historical harvest levels on all public lands and then explore these in more detail by major agency. These trends are then used to develop projections of commercial timber harvests for public lands for 2010−2025. Using this background and perspective, we provide two forecasts of biomass supply from public lands that are consistent with our Low-Price Biomass and High-Price Biomass scenarios. As discussed previously, these are projections of incremental biomass production and do not include biomass chips that may already be counted in historical wood production totals. 3.3.1 HISTORICAL HARVEST ESTIMATES As noted earlier, we have obtained data on Forest Cutting Plans (FCPs) for public sector lands for the period from 1984 to 2009. Exhibit 3-13 shows the number of acres targeted for harvest on public lands according to these plans. There is a general downward trend in these data: the annual average for 2005−2009 was 4,300 acres, significantly less than the average of 5,600 acres in 1984−1988. Exhibit 3-13: Acres Planned for Harvest on All Public Lands, 1984−2009 BIOMASS SUSTAINABILITY AND CARBON POLICY STUDY MANOMET CENTER FOR CONSERVATION SCIENCES 51 NATURAL CAPITAL INITIATIVEPDF Image | NATURAL CAPITAL INITIATIVE AT MANOMET
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