LINGO Aids Russian Forestry

Vienna... The International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), convening in Vienna, is using LINGO to recommend forest harvesting strategies to help Russia ease her balance of payments problem by exploiting her Siberian timberlands.

The LINGO model allows for increasing fiber supply from the forest resources, subject to constraint on equipment costs, changing consumption patterns, differences in harvest costs among resources, and the need to preserve the forests.

Charles Backman, of the College of Forest Resources at the University of Washington, wrote the LINGO application and has been retained by the IIASA as a Research Scientist in Vienna to help in the effort. "You can spend more time on the actual problem, and less time on the formulation with LINGO," Backman said in a telephone interview. "We expect to help Russia exploit its resources responsibly with this technology."

The project will run for six months, and is jointly financed by a number of governments, including the U.S., Finland, Russia, and Germany.

For more information on LINGO, see our products pages. You can also download a trial version from the download page or order a version directly from our order page.