Risk and forest policy: Issues and recent trends in the U.S.

Abstract

Recent forest policy trends in the United States have implications for the nature, timing, and incidence of risk to which the public is exposed. Policy makers face enormous uncertainty both about what forests can do and be and about what people want. Forest policy that places a premium on shortrun predictability in the flow of commodity outputs is being replaced with policy that allows disturbances, such as fire, that are consistent with long-run “naturalness.” Scientists advocate adaptive management—the introduction of planned variation in order to enhance learning within the bounds of “safety,” a concept that can only be understood in the context of public feelings and perceptions of risk. This paper reviews economic models of choice under uncertainty and discusses issues that are relevant for understanding risk perceptions and preferences—the definition of probabilities and the many attributes of risk. And it examines the margins on which trade-offs in risk are made in new forest policy, arguing that because new forest policy shifts from public to private risk and from future to current risk, it may enhance “the common good.” Finally, this paper calls for policy to address uncertainty explicitly in a way that acknowledges public feelings and preferences about risk, recognizes risk perceptions of experts and of lay persons, and encourages developments in forest policy that allow for flexibility in the face of new knowledge.