ENDING LOGGING
OF PUBLIC FORESTS:
THE FACTS
ECONOMY: According to the
Forest Service, recreation, hunting and fishing on national
forests contribute over 37 times more income to the nation's
economy than logging on national forests (source: U.S. Forest
Service: Explanatory Notes for the 1997 Forest Service Budget).
What's more, the public lands logging program is a severe money
loser. Taxpayers, not the timber industry, pay for logging road
construction, timber sale planning and administration, replanting
of trees, timber productivity research, and restoration and
clean-up costs. The average annual cost to taxpayers of the
Forest Service's commercial logging program is $864 million; yet
the Forest Service only returns and annual average of $101
million to the Federal Treasury--an annual net loss of $764
million (source: Forest Service: Distribution of Timber Sales
Receipts Fiscal Years 1992-94, GAO/RCED-95-237FS; USDA Budget
Justifications, FY 1995: US Forest Service).
National Forests
Recreation vs. Logging 1994
Sources:
National Summary Timber Sale Program Annual
Report Fiscal Year 1994
Explanatory Notes for the 1997 Forest Service
Budget
JOBS: Approximately
30,000 loggers and mill workers are employed as a result of the
public lands timber program. Since this program operates at an
annual net loss of over $750 million, this means that taxpayers
are losing about $25,000 annually for each timber worker employed
logging public forests. The average timber worker wage is about
$22,000 per year. If we ended all commercial logging of public
forests and redirected these current logging subsidies into
ecological restoration jobs on national forests, we could employ
all of the current public lands timber workers at a salary
increase, create additional jobs, and still have millions of
dollars left over to return to the Treasury to reduce the
deficit. Furthermore, according to the Forest Service,
recreation, hunting, and fishing on national forests create over
32 times more jobs than logging on national forests (source: U.S.
Forest Service: National Summary Timber Sale Program Annual
Report Fiscal Year 1994).
TIMBER SUPPLY: Only 12% of the
nation's timber supply comes from national forests (source:
"Forest Resources of the United States, 1992", Powell,
Faulkner, et al., U.S. Forest Service General Technical Report
RM-234, Sept. 1993). One out of every two trees cut in this
country is wasted through inefficient utilization and lack of
recycling (source: Postel, Sandra & John C. Ryan,
"Reforming Forestry", State of the World 1991). The
Forest Service reports that over half of all eastern hardwood
lumber in the U.S. is made into shipping pallets. Industry
sources estimate that 57% of these are used only once, then
thrown away, ending up in landfills. We simply don't need to log
public forests for our timber supply. We need only be less
wasteful.
PUBLIC OPINION: The Forest
Service's own 1994 nationwide poll found that 58% of Americans
who expressed an opinion on this issue oppose any commercial
resource extraction on federal public forests (source:
"Forest Service Values Poll Questions, Results and
Analysis", Bruce Hammond, Section 3). More recently, another
nationwide poll found that 59% of Americans expressing an opinion
on the issue opposed logging on public lands. Polls in Kentucky
and Indiana found 72% and 69%, respectively, opposed to logging
national forests.
The People Speak
PRIVATE LANDS: The unfair
competition from the subsidized public lands logging program
forces private timberland owners to overcut in an effort to
compensate for lost profits. As an editorial in the Wall Street
Journal recently stated, "government dumping of cheap timber
makes the market unpredictable for private-sector commodity
suppliers, reducing their incentive to manage land
responsibly...Western Senators and representatives, addicted to
subsidies, perpetuate the myth that the land is a region of
rugged individualists. It's time for the Forest Service to
abandon its role as a producer of commodities...Commodity
production is best left to the private sector." (source:
Wall Street Journal, "Resource Politics Miss the Forest for
the Trees" 5/22/96).
THE HIDDEN COSTS--FLOODS & FIRES: The severe flooding in the Northwest in 1996 was caused
in substantial part by logging on public forests--the treeless
hillsides stripped of their ability to absorb rainwater and
snowmelt, or hold topsoil. (source: Grant & Jones, U.S.
Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station;
"Clear-cuts, roads increase rivers' flows, study says"
Eugene Register-Guard, 3/13/96). The preliminary conservative
damage estimate for Oregon alone is $538 million (source:
"Counties Tallying Damage Estimates from Flood of '96",
Eugene Register-Guard, p. 38, 2/17/96). The recently-released
scientific study of the Sierra Nevada forests, which was
commissioned and funded by Congress, found that "more than
any other human activity, logging has increased the risk and
severity of fires by removing the cooling shade of trees and
leaving flammable debris." (source: Sierra Nevada Ecosystem
Project Final Report to Congress, vol. 1, Assessment Summaries
and Management Strategies, 1996). These logging-caused forest
fires cost lives, as well as several hundred million dollars of
taxpayer money each year in forest fighting expenses. Fact Sheet: Clearcuts, Landslides,
and the 1996 Storms
HISTORY OF PUBLIC FORESTS: The
national forests were off-limits to logging, grazing, and mining
when they were first established beginning in 1891. It was not
until June 4, 1897, due to pressure from timber interests, that
they were opened up to commercial logging--by an appropriations
rider tacked on to the Department of Agriculture spending bill.
SO LITTLE REMAINS: Over 95% of
the original forests of this country have been logged. Almost all
that remains is on public lands (source: National Geographic,
Sept. 1990). The national forests contain over half of the
nation's remaining wildlife habitat (source: Brown, Les, et al.,
World Watch Institute, "State of the World", 1991).