Timber harvest decision and the opportunity cost of forest amenities in French forests

International audience; In France, as in many other European countries, NIPF landowners play a crucial role in the forestry sector. Private forests represent a significant part of the national wood supply and, at the same time, the major provider of forest amenities for the society. Understanding the mechanism behind their management decision is relevant to shape the future forest policy. In this paper, the harvesting decision was modelled in order to identify the relevant factors influencing this management action, using data from a French survey. Results showed that management objectives, risk attitude as well forest-holding size were significant predictors of the likelihood of harvesting. The opportunity cost of changing management priorities from timber-oriented to amenities-oriented was also computed considering different degree of importance of amenities in the management priorities. Results indicated that the opportunity cost measured in terms of forgone wood income in one representative hectare of French private forest was decreasing with the total forest-holding size and increasing the higher the relevance of amenities in the management objectives.