When adopted, wildlife protection policies in Canadian forests typically cover large areas and affect multiple economic agents working in these landscapes. Such measures are likely to increase the costs of timber for forestry companies operating in the area, which may hinder their acceptance of the policies unless harvesting remains profitable. We propose a bi-level wildlife protection problem that accounts for the profit-maximizing behavior of forestry companies operating in an area subject to protection. We consider the regulator with a wildlife protection mandate and forestry companies licensed to harvest public forest lands. We depict the relationship between the regulator and forestry companies as a leader-follower Stackelberg game. The leader sets the protected area target for each license area and the followers adjust their strategies to maximize payoffs while meeting the protection target set by the leader. The leader’s objective is to maximize the area-wide protection of spatially contiguous habitat while accounting for the followers’ profit-maximizing behavior. We apply the approach to investigate habitat protection policies for woodland caribou in the Churchill range, Ontario, Canada. We compare the game-theoretic solutions with solutions that do not consider the forest companies’ objectives and also with solutions equalizing the revenue losses among the companies.

中文翻译：

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用博弈论方法平衡大规模野生动物保护和森林管理目标

加拿大森林中的野生动植物保护政策一经采用，通常会覆盖大片区域，并影响在这些景观中工作的多个经济主体。这些措施可能会增加在该地区经营的林业公司的木材成本，这可能会阻碍他们接受这些政策，除非采伐仍然有利可图。我们提出了一个双层野生动物保护问题，该问题解释了在受保护地区经营的林业公司的利润最大化行为。我们认为监管机构具有保护野生动物的职责，林业公司获得了采伐公共林地的许可。我们将监管者和林业公司之间的关系描述为领导者 - 追随者 Stackelberg 博弈。领导者为每个许可区域设置保护区目标，追随者调整他们的策略以在满足领导者设定的保护目标的同时最大化收益。领导者的目标是最大限度地保护空间连续栖息地，同时考虑追随者的利润最大化行为。我们应用该方法来调查加拿大安大略省丘吉尔山脉林地驯鹿的栖息地保护政策。我们将博弈论解决方案与不考虑林业公司目标的解决方案以及平衡公司之间收入损失的解决方案进行比较。领导者的目标是最大限度地保护空间连续栖息地，同时考虑追随者的利润最大化行为。我们应用该方法来调查加拿大安大略省丘吉尔山脉林地驯鹿的栖息地保护政策。我们将博弈论解决方案与不考虑林业公司目标的解决方案以及平衡公司之间收入损失的解决方案进行比较。领导者的目标是最大限度地保护空间连续栖息地，同时考虑追随者的利润最大化行为。我们应用该方法来调查加拿大安大略省丘吉尔山脉林地驯鹿的栖息地保护政策。我们将博弈论解决方案与不考虑林业公司目标的解决方案以及平衡公司之间收入损失的解决方案进行比较。