<p>As an important part of national natural resource management, the formulation and implementation of forestry policies have a profound impact on the sustainable utilization of forest resources. However, as forestry policies are often influenced by multiple factors, such as economic development, environmental protection and social needs, the problem of their uncertainty has become increasingly prominent. The uncertainty of forestry policies often has a significant impact on farmers’ harvesting expectations and forest management decisions. To quantify forestry policy uncertainty, this study constructs a novel Forestry Policy Uncertainty Index (FPUI). Using the official website of People’s Daily, we employ natural language processing tools to extract relevant news articles in electronic format from 1978 to 2022. The FPUI is then developed through manual processing and further integrated into an extended Faustmann Model under policy uncertainty. The results indicate that the FPUI initially exhibits a fluctuating upward trend, followed by a gradual decline. An increase in forestry policy uncertainty reduces the optimal expected value of forestland while extending the optimal rotation period. Additionally, sensitivity analysis shows that changes in the discount rate, timber prices, and labor costs do not al-ter the core conclusions of the Faustmann Model.</p>