Economic Development Prospects of Forest-Dependent Communities : Analyzing Trade-Offs Using a Compromise-Fuzzy Programming Framework

Many aboriginal communities look to forest resources for short- and long-term employment, adequate timber for mills, an even flow of wood fiber for community stability, and financial returns for economic diversification. We address these conflicting objectives using multiple-objective programming. We show how compromise programming can be used to set bounds on fuzzy membership functions, and illustrate the difference between crisp and fuzzy weighting of objectives. Economic development outcomes obtained using compromise and fuzzy programming greatly improve upon those associated with the even-flow of timber rule of thumb. Yet, timber extraction is an inadequate driver of economic development in rural communities