[at-l] Adding fuel to the fire (was Logging on the AT in Maine)

[Bob Cummings <ellen@clinic.net> (Bob Cummings)]

I don't know the source of Lee I Joe's figures, but somewhat to the point is the
following University of Maine Study:

ORONO -- In counties across the northern U.S., conservation lands have had
little effect on growth rates for local population and jobs, according to a
study by the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station at the University
of Maine.

The findings provide a first look at the impact of conservation lands
on rural economies. David Lewis, a master's student from Yarmouth, in the
Department of Resource Economics and Policy wrote the report with Andrew
Plantinga, an assistant professor, formerly at UMaine and now at Oregon State
University. They focused their study on trends in counties from Maine to
Minnesota between 1990 and 1997. Their goal was to determine if the presence of
conservation lands helps or hinders local economies.

They found no evidence that conservation lands lead to drastic employment
declines or to economic growth. The results suggest that economic development
impacts should not be the primary factor in decisions about establishing new
conservation areas such as national forests, parks, and other local, state or
federally preserved lands. Conservation lands studied include areas such as
national and state forests, wildlife refuges and national and state parks.

Among
the seven states in the study, Maine has the smallest portion of its area in
conservation at 5.4 percent, and Michigan and Minnesota have the largest at 37
percent and 33.3 percent respectively. Altogether, state governments own about
six out of every ten of these acres. Federal ownership accounts for the rest.

"This is a good area to look at because the climate, the population and the
rural economies are relatively similar across the region," says Lewis, "but the
amount of land managed for conservation purposes varies a lot. That allows us to
see if conservation land has an effect on migration to a county or the number of
jobs."

Some counties in the study area have no conservation land while others include
as much as 50 percent of their land under such management. Lewis and Plantinga
used data from U.S. Census reports and created a mathematical model to estimate
the relative importance of conservation lands as a factor in population changes
and job growth. Their model also considers social and economic factors that
could affect rural economic performance. Among them were unemployment, family
income, education levels, recreational opportunities and public expenditures on
education, police and medical needs.

They found that the presence of conservation lands had a slightly positive
impact on net migration into a county but no direct effect on employment growth.
However, since employment growth is directly related to migration, conservation
lands indirectly increase employment, he said. In both cases, the effect was
small.

Their study did not look at the ages or income levels of migrants into counties
or at the composition of employment in local economies.

However, they extended their analysis to consider the relative impacts of
conservation lands managed for preservation and multiple-use purposes. Policies
for preservation exclude timber harvesting and hunting. National parks and some
state-owned areas such as Baxter State Park in Maine, fall into that category.
As multiple-use areas, national forests tend to allow both in addition to
recreational pursuits.

A turning point for national forest management occurred in the late 1980s, the
report notes. Prior to that time, national forest lands tended to be managed
largely for timber harvesting. During the 1980s, pursuant to federal law,
national forest managers rewrote land management plans to put more emphasis on
recreational and environmental values. After 1990, the new plans led to a
reduction in timber harvests by more than two-thirds and a decline in clearcuts
by 80 percent in national forests across the country.

 Despite these trends,
local employment did not drop. To explain this finding, the authors suggest two
possibilities. Either conservation lands have no effect on employment, or losses
in the forest products sector were offset by gains in tourism. Their analysis
did not study either possibility.

The report is available from Barbara Harrity at the Experiment Station by
calling 207-581-3211, or via e-mail, harrity@maine.edu.

Weary