The ECOSEL Research Concept
Tóth started to work on multi-criteria forest planning problems as a graduate
student at Penn State University in 2003. He developed algorithms that can
identify forest management plans that are Pareto-efficient with respect to both
timber and non-timber objectives (Tóth et al. 2006, Tóth and McDill 2009). Tóth
recognized that the potential use of opportunity cost-structures that resulted
from the Pareto-analyses could be extended beyond conventional decision support
for landowners. He saw that the cost and tradeoff information could not only
serve as a platform to solicit public input for natural resource decisions but
it could also be used to raise dollars via auctions to fund desired management
pathways on both public and private lands (Tóth 2008). The ECOSEL concept was
born.
The concept was vetted by Tóth's fellow faculty members at the University of
Washington (UW) College of Forest Resources in 2007 to determine if a grant
proposal could be put together to acquire funding to test the mechanism. Credits
for breakthroughs in the design and the potential applicability of the method go
to forest ecologist Ettl and geospatial scientist and computer programmer Rogers
who both work at the UW in Seattle. The funding effort received a boost when UW
environmental economist Rabotyagov joined the group in 2008. Rabotyagov
designed, and subsequently implemented a series of experimental auctions that
gathered empirical evidence to suggest that the method could increase the
efficient provisions of ecosystem services to the public while generating a
revenue for the provider (Rabotyagov In Review). The positive results helped the
group acquire a major grant in 2009 from the USDA Agriculture and Food Research
initiative's Managed Ecosystems Program to complete the testing and the
developement phases of ECOSEL and to run a real auction at Pack Forest,
Washington in 2011.
Finally, in 2010, environmental attorneys Liegel and Quasius
from K&L Gates LLP agreed to join the team on a pro bono basis to create a legal
framework for the mechanism. Current efforts focus on (1) the development of a
web-based bidding platform to allow real transactions, (2) further tests to
streamline auction design, (3) improvements in the ECOSEL optimization
module and (4) market studies to identify marketable ecosystem services at the
test sites. Graduate research assistants who have contributed to the project
with strong technical skills are Kushch, Könnyű, Rozance and Roesch.