Douglas, I suspect the answer will be 'b', the National Forests will continue to produce some modest to moderate level of harvest. I think there are a number of reasons for this. Harvest from the National Forests has gone from a high of nearly 6 billion board feet in 1987 to around 1.5 bbf in 1993. While this is obviously a sharp drop, it still represents a modest level of harvest. Virtually none of this is coming from the Pacific Northwest which has been shut down for a variety of reasons. However, the PNW has a great deal of second growth timber that will be coming 'on line' in the future which should be less controversial to harvest than old growth. Politically, there are also some factors that will keep the National Forests harvesting some timber. One is the fact that the Forest Service wants to harvest timber at some level to achieve management objectives (whatever they might be) and therefore will continue to look for ways to maintain their timber program. Also, I think Congress will want to maintain a timber program and will work with the Forest Service. Also, the American Forest and Paper Assn., which represents a large majority of the timber industry, has recently came out with a new position on sustainable forest management which I think the public will find very rational and appropriate for public lands. Finally, the federal agencies in eastern Oregon and Washington, Idaho, and Montana are currently preparing a regional environmental assessment for the "East Side." This is roughly analogous to the FEMAT report for the west side of the cascades, but taking much more time to hopefully do it correctly. Given the forest health problems that are obvious in that region of the country, I think the East Side study will make it clear that lack of any management can lead to problems just a too much management can. My feeling is that the pendulum continues to swing. The National Forests, at least in the PNW and Inland Empire where I'm most familiar with, probably were harvesting at too high of a level during the 1980s. That got the agency in trouble, and now they're having problems justifying any timber program on many forests. However, I think the pendulum will swing back and we'll see a more moderate timber program on federal lands at some time in the future. Having said that, I do agree that given the regulatory environment created by the National Forest Management Act, the Endangered Species Act, and other legislation, it could be difficult for the Forest Service to ever be able to get any significant harvest program to pass judicial scrutiny. Scott Roberts Purdue University
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