Timber History, Flashcards
Explain why, theoretically, private forestland owners should manage forests sustainably, and why (nevertheless) forestland-owning logging companies overexploited US forests in the late 1800’s.
Private forestland owners should manage forests sustainably because if they abandon it they will run out of raw timber and they aren’t going to be able to economic revenue from these lands
Logging companies overexploited the US forests because this process of growth took too long so they just cut everything and moved onto a different plot because land was cheap
Explain how the US chose to fix the crisis, and clarify the two main reasons Technocratic Utilitarianism was believed to be the right fix it
Technocratic utilitarianism looks at long term
Changing the ownership to state owned because they need to bare costs for long period before get revenue & are able to manage long-term better
State can manage for Maximum Sustainable Yield & fair and just distribution of benefits
Identify and explain 2 key structural/institutional characteristics of the US Forest Service that lead it to prioritize timber sales in forest management decisions
Revenue Sharing with Local Jurisdictions: Sharing revenue from timber sales with local counties creates dependency and pressure to focus on logging activities.
Congressional Expectations: Legislative mandates and expectations for the USFS to support local timber economies further reinforce the emphasis on timber sales in forest management decisions.
Explain why there was little demand for timber on Public Lands in the West up to WWII and characterize the structure of the industry during that time
industry was primarily focused on private lands where large timber companies had established operations. This focus reduced the immediate demand for timber from public lands.
competition for private timberlands and overexploitation of resources led to an oversupply of timber. oversupply caused price fluctuations and reduced profitability, making it less appealing for companies to invest in resources on public lands.
Overall, the combination of well-established operations on private lands, competition among companies, and market oversupply contributed to the relatively low demand for timber from public lands before World War II.
Illustrate a timber extraction-based economy, identifying example stakeholders through backward, forward, final demand and fiscal linkages
built off of the timber industry
Backward linkages
Ex: chainsaw company, saw supply store, ax supply store, railroad bring timber to mill from forest
Forward linkages
Ex: wooden plank company, the home depots (getting timber), the construction company (needed timber to do their jobs)
Final demand linkages
What the workers spend their money on
Ex:bars, grocery stores, retail stores
Fiscal linkages (public land)
ex: contracts with the USFS. County Supervisors are stakeholders, fiscal linkages bc they depend on the forest to pay for their social services. They don’t like preserves because they depend on the timber service.
Explain the two main reasons why timber production shifts to public lands after WWII
Reason #1: Logging increased significantly on Forest Service Lands after WWII because, by then, private lands had little economically valuable old growth left to log.
Reason #2: The Forest service opens stands to “bid” from companies for logging
-bids often came in too low, leading the government to effectively subsidize the timber industry by covering the difference between the low bid prices and the true cost of managing and regenerating the forests
why the government subsidizes the industry
Because of the US Forest Services mission: Congressional expectation for service to support local timber economies
two main customers of US Public Forestland in that post-WWII period
Small mills; Public lands
- companies log public lands, are dependent on public lands and they are dependent on these forest service contracts and getting these cheap logs.
Large Forestry Companies
- large companies don’t just go away, they consolidate.
log private lands (just a little)
log on public lands (alot)
They shift to public lands and bid on those timber contacts because
It’s the most profitable
Saves their own land
laws that emerged from the Environmental Era that gave environmental groups the power they needed to protect old growth forests
NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act)
NFMA (National Forest Management Act)
ESA (Endangered Species Act)
NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act)
Environmental Impact Statement required for all projects
NFMA (National Forest Management Act)
15 year old Forest Management Plans for all national forests
ESA (Endangered Species Act)
Protection for threatened and endangered species
From the preservation view, identify the land ownership/use on public lands that brings the highest public value
State managed non-exactive used-based economy (management of resources rather than extraction).
Highest value: wildlife habitat, recreation, beauty.
Explain the two main reasons why the protection of old growth on Public Lands was so difficult for the industry to adapt to
After old-growth forests were protected, there was a lack of mature second-growth timber available for immediate harvest. Second-growth forests needed decades to reach the size and quality of old-growth timber, leading to operational delays and disruptions.
younger timber from second-growth forests generally had lower market value compared to old-growth timber, which affected the profitability of logging operations
Clarify whether small or large logging companies were best able to adapt and explain why
Big companies were able to adopt. They could shift their focus to private lands or other types of timber resources. Small companies were much more dependent on public lands than larger companies
