Objectives of forest operations depend on the
objectives of the decision-making body, which normally is the forest owner. He follows
his individual set of objectives, only.
In a first
glance we can assume that there will be an overarching task to maximize the
income of the owner. But things should be differentiated a bit more:
· The material objective of any forest
and herewith also for every forest owner is to care about the forest and to
deliver services and goods in a sustainable way. This defines the typical
character of this branch, its restrictions and limitations.
· The manager of the forest must
regard all these limitations. But inside these restrictions and natural
limitations, different options are given to optimize the success. Choosing the
best option is the original job of the manager. But what is the best? Here the
overarching task may be to maximize the income of the owner, but in some cases,
there are diverging priorities. The success of the manager is measured on the
background of this formal objective.
So, not only
one objective is followed but a set of more than one. Normally we work with
three objectives, economy, ecology and social aspect. The relationship between
them can be fixed with an ultimate goal that is typical for the forest owner
resp. company.
Since the
objectives and the ultimate goal are valid for all actions of the company (like
silviculture, hunting, nature conservation and harvesting, e.g.), they must be
broken down for each field. For each objective we are looking for one
corresponding sub-objective that defines the suitability of the means to reach
the objective. So, the sub-objectives for forest operations are economic
suitability, ecological suitability and social suitability.
Each
sub-objective can further be subdivided into two partial objectives, the effectiveness
and the efficiency. Thus, at the end we have exactly 6 partial
objectives that in common describe the suitability of operational options. We
call this step the assessment as the objective part of the decision-making process.
Like we
have seen with the ultimate goal, also the sub-objectives can be brought to a
relationship by the help of a general concept. A well-developed general concept
for forest operations declares the priorities and preferences of sub-objectives
and partial objectives in order to find a final evaluation of the best option.
