SANTA FE, New Mexico, March 13, 2000 (ENS) - The logging program on America’s national forests cannot be justified on economic grounds because it does more harm than good, two environmental groups said today. Their report, "The Economic Case Against National Forest Logging," argues that cutting down the national forests is a money losing proposition, and that standing trees provide ecosystem functions that are much more valuable than their wood alone. 

National forests represent just 19 percent of all timberland in the U.S., and timber from these lands supports less than five percent of the nation’s annual wood products consumption. 

The wood products industry, heavily subsidized by the federal government, is shrinking. In 1998, for example, the U.S. Forest Service was able to sell only 22 percent of the timber that was put on the auction block in Alaska. 

The 75 page report - the result of three years of research - analyzes the economic value of ecosystem services provided by standing forests, including flood control, water purification, pest control and pollination. These services, the report argues, contribute many times more economic value to rural communities than logging. 

"National forests are far more valuable to America’s rural communities standing and growing as living ecosystems than they are chopped down and turned into two by fours and paper products," said John Talberth, executive director of the National Forest Protection Alliance (NFPA), president of the Forest Conservation Council (FCC), and principal author of the report. 

"There are consistently more jobs, more income and more public revenues associated with forest protection, yet, using economic analysis techniques from the Dark Ages, the Forest Service considers our national forests economically worthless unless they are logged," Talberth says. 

The report, cosponsored by NFPA and FCC, also addresses what economists call "externalities," which are costs passed on to businesses, communities and individuals when national forests are logged. These include costs incurred by municipal water providers when rivers are polluted by logging sediments, as well as lost jobs and revenues incurred by businesses that support recreation and tourism. 

These costs are ignored in U.S. Forest Service (USFS) accounting systems, which only address the direct financial costs of the logging program, the groups say. These costs include timber industry subsidies, which a 1998 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office estimated cost American taxpayers at least $1.7 billion over a three year period from 1995 to 1998. 

These financial losses "are just the tip of the iceberg," said Karyn Moskowitz, a natural resource economist and coauthor of the report. "The costs associated with polluted water, increased floods, lost recreational opportunities and degraded scenery are many times that amount." 

National forests and their watersheds purify water by moderating stream temperatures, filtering sediments and pollutants, and supplying nutrients needed by aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. 

According to the report, national forests in the U.S. supply more than 530.4 million acre feet of clean water each year to municipalities, businesses and rural residents. Economists estimate that the value of this water for consumptive purposes alone is more than $3.7 billion per year. 

The USFS says, "This figure does not include the value of maintaining wild fish species, recreation, or the costs savings to municipalities who have reduced filtration costs because water from national forests is so clean." 

Watershed restoration is increasingly a USFS priority. The Forest Service fiscal 2000 budget will invest an additional $11.8 million to help restore 12 large watersheds nationwide. The additional funding supplements about $6.7 million from local Forest Service funds, and up to an additional $18 million from partner organizations. The total investment in the 12 watershed restoration projects will be about $36 million in fiscal 2000. 

Recreation, hunting and fishing in national forests contribute at least $111 billion to the gross domestic product each year, and generate 2.9 million jobs a year. These uses contribute 31.4 times more value to the economy and generate 38.1 times more jobs than the timber sale program, the report says. 

On five national forests in the southern Rocky Mountains, for example, recreation value in 1996 was $1 billion - almost 250 times the value of logging in those same forests. 

Logging increases the wildfire risk, many ecologists believe. The Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project’s 1996 report notes that, "Timber harvest, through its effects on forest structure, local microclimate and fuels accumulation, has increased fire severity more than any other recent human activity." In 1994, the Forest Service spent almost $1 billion for fire management on national forest lands. 

The American Forest & Paper Association, the forest industry association whose members and contractors do much of the logging in the national forests, has a different viewpoint. Commenting on President Bill Clinton's February 1999 proposal to keep logging roads from invading 40 million roadless acres in national forests, association president and CEO W. Henson
Moore said, "The American people may be surprised to learn that what the President is really doing is implementing a ‘burn and rot’ policy on the National Forests."  "These roads are used to fight fires and help scientists control disease and insect infestations. They are also used by everyday Americans who want to enjoy themselves in the forest. The Forest Service already estimates they have 65 million acres of forestland at high risk of catastrophic wildfire and disease and insect infestation, and this new policy is going to make this situation even worse," Moore said. 

The agricultural industry benefits from the tens of thousands of wild pollinators such as bees and birds that use the national forests for habitat. In a 1997 study of ecosystem services, researchers estimated the potential contribution of wild pollinators to be between $4 billion and $7 billion a year. 

Forests help relieve global warming as well. America’s national forests absorb more than 53 million metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year, reducing the amount of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, in the air. 

Economists estimate that this forest function is worth almost $3.4 billion a year. The USFS has estimated that industries looking for ways to offset the release of carbon dioxide from factories and power plants would be willing to pay about $65 per ton of carbon absorbed by forests, making trees more valuable as carbon sinks than as lumber. 

The economic report lends ammunition to efforts in Congress to end the federal timber sale subsidy program, says Representative Cynthia McKinney, a Georgia Democrat. "The report illustrates that the commercial logging program is causing widespread economic harm to communities near our national forests," said McKinney. "When this harm is added to the amount of money lost on the program each year, it becomes perfectly clear that the federal logging program is economically indefensible."  McKinney is the sponsor of the National Forest Protection and Restoration Act, a bill before Congress that would end the federal timber sale program while putting people to work restoring the damage caused by 100 years of national forest logging. The bill now has 76 cosponsers. 

"A common sense alternative is to protect America’s national forests from commercial logging by reinvesting the logging subsidies into economically viable programs," McKinney said. "Rather than spending taxpayer dollars to degrade our national heritage, we should invest in programs for ecological restoration, adequate school funding, alternative fiber research, vocational training and community economic development." 

"Nova Scotia's tourism industry experienced double digit growth in 1999, making it the strongest year ever. Revenues reached $1.27 billion, representing a 16 per cent gain on top of 1998's record breaking $1.1 billion."

The Department of Natural Resources is moving forward with the province's forest strategy. Changes to the Forests Act have been proclaimed and the new Forest Sustainability Regulations have been approved.

"We are continuing with our new direction for forestry in Nova Scotia," Natural Resources Minister Ernest Fage said today at
Province House. "Amendments to the act and the new regulations are providing the necessary framework to ensure that our forests are managed sustainably."

The department's recent analysis of wood supply has shown the current level of harvesting on small, privately owned lands is not sustainable without significant increases in silviculture. The Forest Sustainability Regulations require the level of silviculture to be tied directly to the level of harvest carried out on these lands, said the minister.

When fully implemented, all registered buyers who acquire more than 5,000 cubic metres solid of primary forest products (2,300 cords of wood) in a year must submit an annual wood acquisition plan. To meet these requirements, they may undertake a silviculture program or contribute to a Sustainable Forestry Fund.

The regulations, with full compliance, will increase the current $3 million of funding for silviculture on small, privately owned lands to $9 million per year. The total silviculture program on industrial, small-private and Crown lands from all sources could
exceed $15 million per year.

These steps are part of the department's forest strategy released in 1997. Implementation of the strategy has been phased in,
beginning with the Registry of Buyers in January 1998, and now the amendments to the act and the new Forest Sustainability
Regulations.

The department is currently working on Wildlife Habitat Management Regulations and a Code of Forest Practices for Crown
lands.

"A need for change has been clearly identified and we are taking the necessary steps to make sure forest management practices in Nova Scotia are sustainable," said Mr. Fage. "We have received encouragement and support for this new approach from industry, private landowners and the public."