Forest Policy Changes Research Articles

The US Forest Service: Whither the new resource management paradigm?

The concept of a resource management paradigm was developed and operationalized in a nationwide study of US Forest Service employees in 1990. The results suggested that the attitudes and values of one particular segment of Forest Service employees, the Association of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, represent an alternative resource management paradigm that differs significantly from the dominant management paradigm held by the majority of US Forest Service employees. The study also found a significant segment of non-Association of Forest Service Employees for the Environmental Ethics employees eager to embrace non-consumptive forest policy changes. In 1996, the nationwide study of the US Forest Service was replicated to re-examine what changes had occurred. The results indicate that: (1) An alternative resource management paradigm continues to exist in the agency but that Association of Forest Service Employees for the Environmental Ethics' role as a catalyst has changed due to a potential decline in association membership, its perceived effectiveness among other agency employees, actual changes in agency resource management, and other more pressing external threats. (2) The agency has shifted more toward embracing the new resource management paradigm between 1990–1996, thus narrowing the perceived bureaucratic performance gap between employee preferences and resource management outcomes. (3) The production of commodities is viewed as more favorable in 1996 than in 1990, perhaps as a result of the shift in agency resource orientation toward ecosystem management and less production of forest goods. It is argued that the pendulum has swung too far toward non-commodities along a commodity/non-commodity continuum in the minds of forest service employees. We argue that this trend is part of an international phenomenon. Further, the kind of longitudinal and institutional analysis presented here could be applied to resource management agencies in national and provincial governments of other countries.

The status of and recent trends in forest sector research in British Columbia

In the decade between 1988 and 1998, expenditures on forest sector research in British Columbia have increased substantially in absolute terms but have fallen in relation to the scale of the province's forestry enterprise. These aggregate trends mask important shifts in funding sources and in the specific fields of research that have been supported. The crown corporation Forest Renewal BC has emerged as the dominant source of support for forestry research, clearly displacing appropriated funds with-in the B.C. Ministry of Forests. As a result of falling stumpage fees and changes in forest policy, this source of support is now declining and the long-term security of the Forest Renewal BC research program is in question. At present, expenditures on forestry research are more or less consistent with expenditures on forestry research in other advanced forested jurisdictions, but the anticipated decline in Forest Renewal BC research support belies this otherwise favourable finding. Expenditures on forest products research in the province have not matched their counterparts elsewhere in the world, and recently have declined precipitously. Forestry – forest conservation, management, products and production processes – is becoming ever more complex. Research activity in the province does not appear adequate to sustain the flow of economic and ecological wealth from forests that British Columbians have always enjoyed and have come to expect.

Timber and Town: Post‐War Federal Forest Policy, Industrial Organization, and Rural Change in Oregon's Illinois Valley

In the recent political furor over disposition of the remaining old‐growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, focus has been directed at the ecological shortcomings of the federal sustained yield forest management doctrine. This has occurred in part at the expense of evaluation of these policies based on social criteria. Yet the sustained yield paradigm and the post‐war compact between private capital and federal forest agencies were justified in part to foster stable rural timber economies. Nowhere has this compact been more significant than in rural Oregon. And yet nowhere are its failings more apparent. The central argument of this paper is that the failure of federal sustained yield policies to sustain rural communities stems from an implicitly naive model of industrial capitalism. By ignoring the inherently destabilizing character of capitalist industry, by further failing to refine the notion of community stability, and by failing to take genuine steps to defend rural society from the upheavals of industrial change, the United States Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management have allowed community stability to languish in the dogged pursuit of accelerated cutting rates. This paper explores industrial change in Oregon's forest products sector in the post‐war era of federal sustained yield management, looking specifically at southwest Oregon's Illinois Valley.

Improved management of Butea monosperma (Lam.) Taub for lac production in India

Lac, a natural resin produced by the lac insect Kerria lacca, is an important income-generating non-timber forest product in India. It is expected that the potential for lac production could increase with India's recent changes in forest policy which encourage the natural regeneration of degraded lands. A review is presented on improved management systems of lac production on Butea monosperma which is the most important lac host tree in India and is prevalent in degraded areas of the sub-Himalayan plains.

Forest biomass as carbon sink‐economic value and forest management/policy implications

All countries in Scandinavia have introduced a carbon fee on fossil fuel to reduce the emission of the climate gas CO2. In Norway the fee is 0.82 NOK (or about 0.12 US$) per liter of gasoline, equivalent to 343 NOK (or 49 US$) per ton CO2. The fee is an emission cost which gives a corresponding benefit for absorbing atmospheric CO2 in forest biomass. This article shows that this benefit corresponds to a net economic value of carbon sequestration in forest biomass 2–30 times higher than the net value of timber as raw material for the forest industry in Norway, which has one of the highest timber prices in the world. If a fee high enough to stabilize the CO2 emission in Norway were to be introduced, the value of carbon sequestration will be at least twice as high as the above estimates. It is argued that this will imply substantial changes in forest management and policy, both in rich and poor countries. Projects to restore and maintain sustainable forest ecosystems will be very profitable, and could simultaneously provide considerable other environmental benefits like increased biodiversity, soil stability, and improved watershed structures.

Putting Ideas in Their Place: A Response to “Learning and Change in the British Columbia Forest Policy Sector”

Ken Lertzman, Jeremy Rayner and Jeremy Wilson provide an idea-based approach to explaining changes in British Columbia's forest policy by applying the concept of learning developed by Paul Sabatier as part of his “advocacy coalition framework.” This effort to highlight the importance of ideas and learning is a welcome development in Canadian policy studies. But a word of caution is in order as well, because the article has some indications of slipping into a disconcerting pattern in the development of our discipline. For periods of time we seem to single out one significant variable and pay an inordinate amount of attention to it, the most striking examples being interest groups in the 1950s and 1960s and institutions in the 1980s. As we seize upon the new variable, we discredit the previous generation of scholars who we claim (sometimes misleadingly) ignored it.

The economic effect of forest policy changes in British Columbia: an event study of stock-market returns

In 1987 the government of British Columbia (B.C.) made substantial changes in its forest policy, including "clawing back" 5% of the volume committed on all of its replaceable licenses and shifting of reforestation costs to the licensees. Analysis of the reaction of stock prices to the announcement of these policy changes reveals that the policy had a negative, but not statistically significant impact on B.C. forest products companies taken as a whole. Those medium-sized B.C. forest products firms that own little private land and operate mainly in B.C. suffered small but statistically insignificant losses. The policy changes apparently did not affect large B.C. forest products firms and non BC-based forest products firms. The results may arise because (i) as a result of restrictions on log exports the volume reductions were simply reallocated within extant timber markets, (ii) timber from the replaceable licences is fully priced, (iii) the adjustments were small when compared with the overall market capitalization of the firms involved, and (iv) there was general financial euphoria in the late 1980 s. These findings should not be extended to larger policy adjustments or to the problem of evaluating the impact of province-wide reductions in allowable harvest levels.

Sawlog allocation: An economic appraisal of a value adding initiative

Summary Recent Victorian forest policy changes have brought about a new system of allocating sawlogs to sawmills. As one of several changes brought about with the Value Adding Utilisation System (VAUS), the government may shift the allocation of high grade sawlogs towards sawmills which produce higher value products. The purpose is to promote stability, investment and employment in the timber industry. An economic analysis of sawmill production shows that efficient production decisions are determined by output prices. Government reallocation of sawlogs distorts sawmill decisions to produce sub-optimal sawmill profits. Strategic behaviour is also introduced which can further erode profitability. As a result, stability, investment and employment are unlikely to be encouraged by the allocative component of the VAUS.

Europe 1992: Threat or opportunity for the Canadian forest products industry and implications for public policy

Structural and regulatory changes in Europe are expected to have major implications for the forest products industry and forestry in Canada. In this paper, the changes associated with the completion of the internal market of the European Community, the introduction of a new European forest policy, and structural, political and economic changes in eastern Europe are surveyed and their impacts on the demand and supply of forest products analyzed. The paper also explores the appropriate strategic responses of Canadian firms. The paper concludes with the implications of the political and economic changes brought about by Europe 1992 for public policy.

The perceived security of institutional investment environments of some British Columbia forest tenures

Changes in forest tenure policies may create insecure investment environments for tenure holders, which can result in misallocations of investment capital. A methodology is developed to measure tenure holders' perceived security in their tenure arrangements. The methodology is applied to three types of tenures in British Columbia. Results indicate that tenure holders perceive Tree Farm Licences and Timber Lands as insecure and Taxation Tree Farms as secure.

Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Estimating Demand and Supply Functions for Differentiated Products

In choosing the level of quality to purchase, the buyer of a differentiated product also chooses a point on the marginal price schedule for that product. Hence, in general, the demand functions for product characteristics cannot be consistently estimated by ordinary least squares. Market equilibrium results in a matching of characteristics of demanders and suppliers. This matching restricts the use of buyer and seller characteristics as instruments when estimating demand and supply functions for product characteristics. The paper develops these issues. A stochastic structure for hedonic equilibrium models is then proposed, identification results are presented, and estimation procedures are outlined.

Determining Local Employment, Distribution, and Tax Revenue Effects of Changes in Forest and Range Policies

Abstract A method to estimate the direct and indirect changes in local area employment, income distribution, and tax revenues is given and its usefulness for evaluating various Forest Service policies illustrated. Policies studied are those which decrease allowable timber cut by 10 percent, decrease animal units on the forest by 20 percent, and increase forest-related tourism by 10 percent in two trade areas of Arizona. The policies have a combined effect which only marginally changes employment in each area. Timber and range policies are regressive with respect to income distribution, and the tourism policy is progressive. The individual and combined effects of the assumed policies on tax revenues are small. Policy effects vary among areas of differing economic structures.

Economic Impacts of Forest Policy Changes: A Perspective from Nepal

DOI: 10.3126/init.v1i0.2678The Initiation Vol.1 2007 p.36-42

Two Arizona Forest Lieu Land Exchanges

DURING the administrations of Cleveland, Harrison, and Theodore Roosevelt, the national government made many reforms in its land policies. For the first time, it devoted much attention to the conservation of forest resources. Congress took the initial step in 1891 by authorizing the President to set aside permanent forest reservations. Fifteen reserves in western states, totaling about thirteen million acres, were established within tlhree years. Cleveland, in the fall of 1893, refused to proclaim any more because there were no laws then existent to give any protection to those already founded. The matter drifted for three years, until the Secretary of the Interior called upon the National Academy of Sciences to recommend changes in the nation's forest policy. The academy appointed a commission of six, whose tour of the West resulted in the establishment of thirteen additional reserves containing over twenty-one million acres.' The proclamations were issued so abruptly as to be unfair to those in the region. Westerners, either actually injured by the hasty action or else hampered in their plans to exploit the public domain, presented strong opposition. Congress, debating the matter during two sessions held in 1897, finally changed the effective date of the proclamations to March 1, 1898. An important section of the act making this alteration concerned lieu lands and read as follows: