Benefits and Costs of Natural Resources Policies Affecting Public and Private Lands: USDA W2133 Regional Research Project Legacy and Current Contributions

Abstract

In 1967, a group of resource and environmental economists from across the nation got together under the auspices of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to form a multistate collaborative research project. The goal of this research initiative was to bring together natural resource and environmental economists from across land grant and non-land grant institutions in order to advance natural resource benefit and cost methods, collect primary data on pertinent natural resource policies, and develop applications for extending the usefulness of primary data on the benefits and costs of natural resource policy. Initially given the USDA project identification number WM-59, the Western Regional Research Project: Benefits and Costs of Natural Resources Policies Affecting Public and Private Lands has been a productive intellectual, professional, and policymaking endeavor for more than forty-two years. While the project indentifying moniker has been changed from time to time (from WM-59 to W133 to W1133 to W2133) and there has been the loss, sometimes untimely, of project participants over the years, the group continuously provides opportunities for some of the nation's most engaged resource and environmental economists to work together, share their ideas, provide feedback and support, and advance the state-of-the art in valuation methods and applications.