Richard W. Haynes

Integrated scientific assessment for ecosystem management in the interior Columbia Basin and portions of the Klamath and Great Basins.

The Integrated Scientific Assessment for Ecosystem Management for the Interior Columbia Basin links landscape, aquatic, terrestrial, social, and economic characterizations to describe biophysical and social systems. Integration was achieved through a framework built around six goals for ecosystem management and three different views of the future. These goals are: maintain evolutionary and ecological processes; manage for multiple ecological domains and evolutionary timeframes; maintain viable populations of native and desired non-native species; encourage social and economic resiliency; manage for places with definable values; and, manage to maintain a variety of ecosystem goods, services, and conditions that society wants. Ratings of relative ecological integrity and socioeconomic resiliency were used to make broad statements about ecosystem conditions in the Basin. Currently in the Basin high integrity and resiliency are found on 16 and 20 percent of the area, respectively. Low integrity and resiliency are found on 60 and 68 percent of the area. Different approaches to management can alter the risks to the assets of people living in the basin and to the ecosystem itself. Continuation of current management leads to increasing risks while management approaches focusing on reserves or restoration result in trends that mostly stabilize or reduce risks. Even where ecological integrity is projected to improve with the application of active management, population increases and the pressures of expanding demands on resources may cause increasing trends in risk.

Forest Sector Impacts from Changes in Forest Productivity Under Climate Change

The consequences of elevated carbon dioxide and climate change on forest systems and the role that economics could play in timber harvest and vegetation change have not been addressed together. A framework was developed to link climate change scenarios, an ecosystem model, a forest sector model and a carbon accounting model. Four climate scenarios were used to estimate net primary productivity (NPP) for forests in the United States. Changes in NPP were estimated using TEM, the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model which uses spatially referenced information on climate, soils and vegetation to estimate important carbon and nitrogen fluxes and pool sizes within ecosystems at the continental scale. Changes in NPP under climate change were used to modify timber growth within the Aggregate Timberland Assessment Model (ATLAS), which is a part of the forest sector model (TAMMATLAS) used by the Forest Service to examine timber policy questions. The changes in timber inventories were then translated into changes in the amount of carbon stored on private timberlands using a national carbon model (FORCARB). Regional changes in productivity filter through the forest sector and result in changes in land use and timber consumption. Long-term changes in carbon storage indicate that these private timberlands will be a source of carbon dioxide for all but the most optimistic climate change scenario.

The 2005 RPA timber assessment update.

This update reports changes in the Nations timber resource since the Analysis of the Timber Situation in the United States was completed in 2003. Prospective trends in demands for and supplies of timber, and the factors that affect these trends are examined. These trends include changes in the U.S. economy, increased salvage of British Columbia beetle-killed timber, and a stronger U.S. dollar. Other prospective trends that might alter the future timber situation are discussed including changes in U.S. timberland area, reductions in southern pine plantation establishment, impacts of climate change on forest productivity, increased restoration thinning on Western public lands, and the impact of programs to increase carbon sequestration through afforestation. Various management implications such as the influence of prices on forest management, concerns about changes in forest area, the emerging open space issue, forests as a set of commons, seeking to find greater compatibility in forest management, and the stewardship agenda are discussed.

Economic assessment of ungulate herbivory in commercial forests of eastern Oregon and Washington, USA

Four forest stands in eastern Washington and Oregon, USA, containing exclosures to prevent or impede ungulate herbivory, were modeled to forecast timber yields and soil expectation values (SEVs) at harvest. Contrasts of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex Laws.) growth and yield inside and outside exclosures show that ungulate herbivory may either promote or depress tree volume growth. Projected income from stands with more intensive stocking management and with inclusion of regulated livestock herbivory was higher than that of less intensively managed stands without livestock for scenarios with projected rising stumpage price levels for 2040. Under an assumption of future stumpage prices held constant at 1990 levels, the reverse was true. Ungulate herbivory plus planted stock and prescribed fire in site preparation provided the highest stand value at two sites. Sites without prescribed fire fared better when fenced to prevent livestock or big game herbivory. The results illustrate that ungulate herbivory alone is not the determinant factor of the economic yield of stands, but ungulate herbivory can have substantial impact on site productivity when used in conjunction with prescribed fire, stocking control, and species selection.

Contemporary Management Regimes in the Pacific Northwest: Balancing Biophysical and Economic Concerns

For almost a century timberland in Oregon and Washington (especially in western Oregon and Washington) has been managed with increasing intensity to support a forest products sector that has grown in both size and complexity. Various forest management regimes evolved as landowner objectives, regulatory conditions, and the markets for (and utilization of) harvested timber changed and silvicultural knowledge (including growth and yield information) advanced. The region is characterized by diverse ownerships (Table 1) that have led to a patchwork mosaic of management regimes. Unlike other U.S. regions, however, these ownerships tend to consist of large and relatively contiguous blocks of timberland, leading to an interest in landscape scale management approaches within individual ownerships. This chapter discusses the evolving mix of management regimes, the conditions that influence their adoption, expected trends in forest management, and the effects of these trends on timber harvest potential.

The Adjustment of Product and Factor Markets: An Application to the Pacific Northwest Forest Products Industry

An equilibrium model of output and factor markets is used to calculate comparative static effects of demand and factor supply shifts on output and factor prices and employment in the Pacific Northwest forest products industry. The technological link between output and factor levels is provided through a three-input production function. Results over the 1950–76 sample period suggest that changes in product-to-factor price ratios and factor employment are a consequence of differing factor supply elasticities and that factor supply shifts have limited effect on output price and employment levels because of substitution possibilities occurring in the production process and marketplace.

Methodological Considerations in Developing the Timber Assessment Projection System

This chapter considers the major modeling issues that arise in devel- opment of a resource and market projection system. It reviews recent evolution in policy and scenario planning and forest sector market modeling. It presents a basic outline of the Timber Assessment Projection System and compares its structure to that of other contemporary modeling approaches.

Integrating Concerns About Wood Production and Sustainable Forest Management in the United States

Summary The implementation of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) in the United States is strongly influenced by U.S. forest products markets and the numerous management decisions made by individual landowners and managers. These decisions are influenced by a mix of market incentives and regulatory actions reducing predictability in assessing progress toward SFM and causing angst for some proponents of SFM because prices might provide insufficient incentive for what they believe are necessary forest practices. At the same time, conservation proponents are advocating forest management regimes that lead to reduced financial returns. These dual concerns are leading to new alliances and new approaches for forest-based conservation and management.

Bioeconomic and market models

The United States has a century of experience with the development of models that describe markets for forest products and trends in resource conditions. In the last four decades, increasing rigor in policy debates has stimulated the development of models to support policy analysis. Increasingly, research has evolved (often relying on computer-based models) to increase understanding of consumer demands, producer behavior, landowner behavior, and conditions of the timber resource. Greater computational power available since the mid 1970s has allowed the evolution of bioeconomic models that combine economic and resource models. These are used in the United States to provide the basis for forecasting future resource and market trends and to inform policy analysis. These more complex models have also extended options for policy analysis using approaches such as scenario planning to help decision makers gauge uncertainty.

Changing Perceptions of the U.S. Forest Sector: Implications for the RPA Timber Assessment

Over the past seventy-five years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service has conducted more than fifteen major assessments of the long-term supply, demand, and price outlook for forest products in the United States. These assessments and associated long-term projections have played a significant role in shaping peoples perceptions of the future. They have served as means for identifying emerging problems in the forest sector and as a vehicle for evaluating the potential effectiveness of various policies on these problems. The Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA) enacted in 1974 formalized the issue identification function of the assessment process and established a direct link between long-range timber assessment projections and the development of specific Forest Service programs, plans, and budget requests. The RPA, among other things, has fostered the development of a long-term analytical planning system within the Forest Service and a greater willingness on the part of policy makers, both within the agency and in the Congress, to consider alternative policies and scenarios for the future. It has also generated a concern about what forces or developments act to change the outlook and prospects for the forest sector. The 1980 timber assessment required by the RPA (USDA Forest Service 1982), as those made during the last three decades, forecast strong growth in consumption of both solid wood and fiber products, limited growth in the domestic forest inventory, and continued real growth in forest products prices through the year 2000 and beyond. Within the past five years, however, traditional views of the longrange prospects of the industry have been increasingly challenged. Quite apart from concerns about the extent and timing of recovery from the current recession, the outlook for the forest products sector seems beset with a growing number of uncertainties. The changes that have come to light in recent years suggest the need for several important modifications in the Forest Service assessment process. We examine the apparent sources of growing uncertainty in the future of the U.S. forest sector and provide examples of the effects of these uncertainties on the long-term outlook. In the concluding section, we propose changes in the Forest Service assessment process to accommodate these new developments.