Logging ban no great loss to timber communities

The area beyond the road is part of one of Washington state's roadless areas in the Hood Canal Ranger District, Olympic National Forest

June 19, 2000
Web posted at: 11:40 a.m. EDT (1540 GMT)

By Environmental News Network staff

Protecting Washington's remaining roadless areas can profit rural communities that have traditionally depended on logging, according to a study released this week.

The study arrives as the U.S. Forest Service considers a federal proposal to ban new roads and other development in forest areas. Backed by the Clinton administration, the plan would affect 43 million acres of roadless forests, including about 2 million acres in Washington.

The main objection to protecting roadless areas is that it will cost Washington's timber communities vital jobs and income. "Ultimately, this proposal will impact thousands of rural communities and working families across America and deny access to our national forests," said Mike Draper, regional vice president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America.

Funded by the Wild Washington Campaign, a coalition of pro-wilderness organizations, the report may shed new light on this argument.

"Washington's remaining roadless national forest areas are an asset that can spur the long-term economic vitality of Washington's forested eastern and southwestern counties," said Thomas Power, an economics professor at the University of Montana and lead author of the study. "For over a century the non-commercial values of forested land have been ignored in the economic dialogue, but it turns out they are critical and, in fact, mean more jobs, income and secure economic growth for traditionally timber-dependent communities." (For a detailed map of wild and roadless areas in Washington, click the here.)

Power examined the potential economic impact of protecting all of the inventoried roadless areas in Washington from chainsaws in 18 of the state's rural counties.

"The focus of this analysis is on those counties that have significant national timber harvests, have a relatively high reliance on forest products for employment and have significant roadless acreage," Power wrote. "These are the counties that will be affected the most if roadless areas are put off limits to logging."

The Long Swamp Inventoried Roadless Area in Okanogan National Forest includes 70,000 acres of mountainous terrain

Reduced federal timber harvests during the 1990s did not lead to dramatic unemployment, loss of population, reduced local government revenue or declining average income, the report finds. On the contrary, almost all of those measures of local economic vitality showed signs of improvement.

Despite a 93 percent decline in national forest timber extraction and the loss of 7,300 forest products jobs in Washington between 1988 and 1998, total employment in the 18 communities rose by 33 percent.

In areas where timber declines were the steepest, economies were the strongest. While 3,000 forest products jobs were lost in eastern and southwestern Washington, more than 170,000 jobs were added outside that sector.

Construction in most rural counties has skyrocketed, providing alternative job opportunities for former forest product workers, Power said. As transportation and communication technology improve, businesses and individuals are able to locate in rural communities that previously supported extraction of natural resources.

Many rural counties such as Okanogan County experienced the same economic growth as the state's metropolitan areas.

"Communities that insist on clinging to traditional, extraction-based economies are asking for stagnation," said Power. "Those industries will inevitably mechanize, exhaust their resources and decline, eliminating jobs and stalling out economies in their wake. In order to stimulate lasting economic growth and ensure a strong future for coming generations, jobs, industry and income sources must continually diversify."

Most roadless national forest areas have never been part of the commercial timber base, the report also finds. National forests contribute only 4 percent of state timber harvests. (Click here to see a map of the roadless areas included and excluded from the proposed Forest Service road building moratorium.)

"There are almost no plans to harvest trees in roadless areas," Power noted. "These areas are not roadless by accident. While logging has been taking place for 150 years (in Washington), these areas have yet to be entered for logging because it has not been economical. Nevertheless, the timber industry does not want to loose access to anything."

Copyright 2000, Environmental News Network, All Rights Reserved

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U.S. Forest Service
Wild Washington Campaign
Pacific Biodiversity Institute

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