VESTRA worked closely with The Pacific Lumber Company (PALCO) to develop GIS based alternative forest plans. These forest plans incorporated a 120-year planning horizon and allowed PALCO managers to evaluate and explore many alternatives, increasing their understanding of the issues affecting management of their lands, options available to them, and environmental and economic consequences of these alternatives. Propertywide management alternatives were developed and evaluated using VESTRA's Ep(x) analysis framework and toolset.

Inputs and outputs of each management prescription, including costs, revenues, volumes by species and size, harvest disturbance index, and several types of wildlife habitat are simulated and stored in a relational database referred to as a resource capability model (RCM). VESTRA and PALCO management and staff were able to run and evaluate in excess of 100 policy alternatives over a four-month period.

VESTRA's GIS work for PALCO's 855,000-acre analysis area also included capturing data layers such as soils, US Geological Survey elevation contours, and geomorphology to support development of a watershed sensitivity model, performing comparison of PALCO's timber typing with the Timberland Task Force data, generating watershed flow accumulation coverages to support decisions regarding stream-crossing design for road system reconstruction projects, and providing GIS mapping and reporting support for PALCO's ongoing fisheries and watershed analysis.

For the latter activity, VESTRA designed and developed ARC/INFO dynamic segmentation data sets that have been used extensively to evaluate interrelationships between stream habitat quality (pools, riffles, shade canopy, temperature, large woody debris, and substrata types) and fish population data in support of PALCO's Sustained Yield Plan/ Habitat Conservation Plan effort.