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Abstract
An important cause of deforestation in arid and semi-arid countries is the overcutting of forests for domestic fuel and agricultural use. This paper constructs a dynamic model of deforestation in Sudan and compares optimally managed forests with common property forests. The optimal management plan was calculated with an optimal control model solved with non-linear programming. The common property plan was calculated with a simulation model. Results show that the optimal management plan maintains the stock of trees whereas the common property plan exhausts the stock of trees. Agricultural yields first increase and then decrease with increasing deforestation. The value of the optimally managed forest was 25% higher than that of the common property forest.