FORESTRY RESOURCES ISSUES(Natural Resource Economics Econ 4535 Fall 2006)I. Roadless Forestsa. Of the total 192 million acres of national forests in USA, about 35 million acres have been declared “wilderness” by the Wilderness Act of 1964 and about 58.5 million acres were declared “roadless forests” by President Clintonin 2001. These roadless areas are spread throughout 39 states, including 4.4 million acres of roadless areas in the nine national forests located in Colorado.b. The proposed roadless forests constitute 2% of US land base and 31% of national forests. c. Thus, one could talk about three types of forests: roaded, roadless, and wilderness. Building of roads for timber harvesting, outdoor recreation, and wildfire protection is open in roaded national forests. Building of roads is completely prohibited in wilderness areas, whereas it is permitted only in certain exceptional cases in roadless forests (for protection of public health and safety for imminent threat of flood , fire, or catastrophic events, or for allowing reserved or outstanding rights provided by statute or treaty, or for providing access to current – already awarded – mineral leases, etc.). Non-construction of roads limits severely the opportunities for harvesting timber from roadless forests. On the other hand, this is anticipated to help outdoor recreation, and protect watershed, and preserve wildlife habitat. d. Outdoor recreation using snowmobiles, motorbikes, and mountain bikes are prohibited in wilderness areas, but not in roadless areas.e. In 2003 President Bush exempted two roadless forests in Alaska (Tongass and Chugach) from roadless rule. In 2005, President Bush repealed the Roadless Initiative and replaced it with a state petition process. Under this process, stategovernors had time until November 13, 2006 to petition the Secretary of Agriculture for additions, subtractions, or other changes for the management of raodless areas in their respective states. The Secretary of Agriculture then would decide whether to accept or reject individual petitions of states. f. The roadless initiative has remained highly controversial due to potential logging restrictions, but on the other hand the state petition process seeks to involve direct participation of states. States have submitted their petitions, which are under review now.g. A method for evaluating whether the roadless initiative for a given tract of forest in a national forest is economically justified would be the application of“with-without principle” of economic analysis. In this method, the total benefit and total cost of the forest tract are first calculated with the assumptionthat the forest tract will be kept without any road. Then, calculations are repeated with the assumption that roads will be built and used in that tract of forest. The difference between the so-calculated with-road and without-road benefits is known as the incremental benefit, and the difference between the with-road and without-road costs is known as the incremental cost of roadless initiative. If the incremental benefit exceeds the incremental cost, the roadless initiative in that forest tract would be considered economically justified.II. Forest Services Plan 2004 – 2008 a. Of the total 750 million acres of forested land in the United States, the U.S. Forest Services (USFS) – under the Department of Agriculture – manages 192million acres of national forests and grasslands. Its mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. b. Each national forest is subdivided into “ranger districts” for management purposes; each district is headed by a district ranger. USFS periodically issuesfive-year strategic plans for the management of national forests; the most recent plan is called the Strategic Forest Services Plan 2004-2008. This plan has set aside six main goals: reduce the risk of catastrophic wildland fire, reduce the impacts from invasive species, provide outdoor recreational opportunities, help meet energy resource needs, improve watershed conditions, and conduct mission related work in addition to that which supports the agency goals. c. About 73 million acres of USFS land are considered at high risk of catastrophic wildfire. A catastrophic wildfire is a canopy or crown fire that reaches the tops of trees and burns essentially the entire forest. This type of fire is hard to control due to the large vertical height which the fire reaches, and the fast pace at which the forest burns. Last year alone fires burned about 8.7 million acres, and the annual fire suppression costs of the federal government in the last 12 years have ranged between $3.3 million to $1.7 billion. With an increasing population, human settlement is expanding closer to forest lands and thus increasing the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) and increasing the risk of wildland fire. The means of reaching this goal of the strategic plan are done through removing ladder-fuels (the shrubby underbush or under-story that builds up on the ground of forests), controlled burning, manual thinning, road construction, and clear cutting, especially near the areasclose to WUI. However, environmentalists are concerned whether this goal becomes a pretext for timber harvesting even in areas which are not necessarily in grave danger of wildfires. Also, certain wildfires are considered a part of natural phenomenon, the nature’s way to rejuvenate the health of forests, and the process of controlled burning may actually delay or hamper this natural process.d. Invasive species such as insects, pathogens, plants and aquatic pests pose a major risk to the health of forests by interfering with natural and managed ecosystems, degrading wildlife habitat, reducing the sustainable production of natural-resource-based goods and services and increasing chance of ecosystems to other disturbances such as fire and floods. About 70 million acres of USFS land is “high risk” of 26 different insects and diseases and 133 million acres are inhabited by invasive species. Roads are proposed to be constructed in areas of high wildfire risks to facilitate movement of firefighting equipment, but they also enable invasive species to spread. USFS is spending over $4 million every year against invasive species; the plan is to prevent introduction of new invasive species or aggressively eradicate newly detected pest species