Forest Economics Research At The Pacific Northwest Research Station To 2000

The contributions for over 80 years by scientists at the Pacific Northwest Research Station to developments in economic theory, economic tools, policies, and economic issues are summarized. This is a story of progressive accomplishments set against a constantly changing background of economic and social events.

The USDA Forest Service has had a longstanding presence in utilization, economics, and social sciences research and development activities. The magnitude and diversity of these activities have changed as the questions and the people asking them have changed over the past century. These changes challenge the social science and utilization research community to develop this collective research agenda for utilization, economics, and social sciences research and development activities conducted by the Forest Service. It sets the context for the utilization, economics, and social sciences research and development activities in the Forest Service. It deals with the need to balance knowledge creation with the constantly changing demand for information that guides various land management decisions and shapes policymaker perceptions in various environmental debates. The research agenda is built around six common themes that will help us create a larger pool of experience from which we can form judgments relative to outcomes and develop tools that can be used to solve a variety of problems. It assumes that the worth of utilization, economics, and social sciences research and development activities will be judged by our ability to create lasting solutions that alter outcomes. Finally, creating and implementing such a research agenda depends on leaders who can advocate for problem selection that recognizes the full integrated nature of contemporary questions, who can synchronize research oriented toward major questions with knowledge creation, and who can serve as defenders of social science research against ideological attacks by emphasizing the true nature of questions and the importance of taking integrative approaches.

For much of the last century, the connection between national forests and many rural forest communities, especially in the Pacific Northwest, was defined by timber-related employment. Assumptions about the economic dependence of forest communities on federal timber prompted the Forest Service to make community stability a matter of agency policy. But the relationship between forests and communities has changed, particularly over the last 25 years with declining timber harvests on federal land. Without question, declines in timber production and other resource-base industries have adversely affected rural forest communities, leaving some with few economic alternatives. Yet many communities once commonly referred to as S2timber dependentS3 have persisted despite the loss of an economic mainstay.