Modeling Ecological Constraints on Tropical Forest Management: Comment

Abstract

We offer this comment on1recent model of ecological constraints on tropical forest management in order to emphasize the complexity of the subject and to qualify the usefulness of her method. Albers structures her model in a highly asymmetric manner in favor of preservation. We contend that the results of a truly general, empirically defensible model of tropical forest management are inherently ambiguous. Spatial and intertemporal dimensions clearly matter, but they do not point as neatly in favor of preservation as Albers would have us believe.