Abstract:

Increase in forest carbon sinks is widely accepted as an important measure for reducing climate change. In this paper, a growth model of Chinese fir, and the Faustmann model of carbon density and price were used to comparatively analyze the optimal rotation age and forestland expectation value of the traditional timber management and the combined timber and carbon management. The empirical data was collected from the Changhua Forest Farm in Zhejiang Province. A sensitivity analysis was conducted with different interest rates and carbon prices, and the carbon supply curve was developed. It was found that the optimal rotation of Chinese fir in the joint management did not changed due to the fact that timber price was much higher than carbon price, suggesting that carbon supply for current forestland would not increase significantly within a large range change of carbon price. However, in terms of rapid increase in expectation value of the Chinese fir forestland with the carbon management model, carbon sink of the woodland has a huge potential investment value, which also suggests that forest carbon sinks may have a huge impact for the land-use change.

Key words: forest carbon, forestland expected value, carbon supply, Chinese fir