The Forests for Tomorrow (FFT) program was established to respond to the catastrophic wildfires of 2003 and the mountain pine beetle epidemic. The program is aimed at improving the future timber supply and addressing risks to other forest values through the re-establishment of young forests on land that would otherwise remain under-productive. The program emphasizes surveying, site preparation and planting. These treatments are guided by strategic-level program planning, seed supply planning, silviculture strategies and timber supply analyses.

Accurate decision making is extremely important. Wrong decisions can have a major economic impact. For example, the cost of growing seedlings that may never be used and reforesting areas that may not be productive can be very high. It is critical to decide about the stand treatment in an objective way that reflects the reality of the situation.

This course describes two tools that you can use to help determine the return on investment (ROI) or the internal rate of return (IRR) as a result of silviculture treatments. The two tools are the ROI Field Card and the IRR Worksheet (also called the Stand Rehabilitation Financial Analysis).

The ROI Field Card gives you a rough idea of the potential for the stand investment and helps eliminate stands where there is little benefit to be gained from treatment.

The IRR worksheet provides you with a more detailed analysis for those cases where there appears to be some return potential for the stand. The IRR worksheet requires input from TIPSY economic analyses.

There is a master page on the Forests for Tomorrow website called Return on Investment located at http://forestsfortomorrow.com/fft/tool/return-investment/222. All the tools for this course can be accessed there.