Book Description

This study was undertaken to address the challenge of optimizing the overall benefits of forest landscapes to both the forestry & tourism industries in British Columbia. Nimmo Bay Lodge was chosen for the study because it had a defined viewshed with merchantable wood, planned timber harvesting activities in the viewshed, and clients willing to be surveyed. A visual perception survey was administered to 96 lodge patrons to determine visitor response to various visual quality scenes & silvicultural systems such as partial retention and clear-cutting. The survey sought to determine the proportion of clients who would return to the lodge. Next, the viewshed for the lodge was defined to establish a land base for benefit analysis purposes, and an annual timber flow was derived for the area. The benefit analysis looked at several scenarios ranging from no harvesting to maximum harvest in four economic areas: resource value, business revenue, government revenue, and employment & income. Includes glossary.