this quiet place with the initiation of the RARE II process. He has coaxed classic statements from the many factions . struggling to determine Long Canyon's future : local chamber of commerce rypes, logging industry reps speaking at Forest Service pep sessions, and oldtime loggers who seem to know the most about what's going on. They tell it straight: without federal subsidization of logging roads, the industry could never justify the costs in logging a place as inaccessible as Long Canyon. "The roads cost more than the value of the timber that comes out." As a local economist adds: it is the rareness of Long Canyon's last stand that gives it value- not the 100 million board feet of lumber that would rip through local saw mills in 1-1/2 years. In contrast to such federal make-work, the Long Canyon film gives us a flavor for those who would harvest timber in a more sustainable forest economy : the old horse Cascade Holistic Economic Consultants P.O. Box 3479 Eugene, Oregon 97403 Economics is no steadfast science, but a value-implicit process-the way we go about allocating scarce resources has everything to do with the end-uses we value most. In focusing on the Pacific Northwest's regional economic base, Cascade Holistic Economic Consultants (CHEC) place high value on that economy which best serves the public interest. Their in-depth explorations of forestry and economic issues affecting public and private lands have helped demystify many complex land management questions and make them more accountable to people. Recent examples of CHEC consulting include appeals of Forest Service timber management plans based on faulry economics and investigations of problems related to nickel mining for concerned citizens June 1979 RAIN Page 7 The recent Emergency Suspemion of the use of pbenoxy herbicides 2,4, 5-r and Silvex 011 forestlands, rights-ofway and pasturelands by the EPA was a tremendous validation ofthe arguments used by antj·berbicide groups conceming the high likelihood ofpublic contamination by such toxins (see Rain May 1978). EPA has used tbe same argumems in pushing for tbis ban, which will not be official until a lel/gthy hearings process is completed. These hearings could significantly weaken the cornerstone on whicb the forest industry has rested its case for chemical intensive management practices. It is certain that economic and toxicological cost/benefit arguments that consider labor-intensive alternatives will now be paid more attention. It 's time to realize that the f orestry-based economy is simply not going to fall apart because ofa switch away from chemicals. loggers and portable saw mill operators who turn logging company waste into surplus value and leave the special places to be . . . special places. A film An Economic Analysis-ofHerbicide well worth the viewing. Use for Intensive Forestry Management, Part I: Evaluation of "Forestry Related Impacts of 2,4,5-T in Oregon" by Saving AU the Pieces: Old Growth Knapp, Greaves and Chetok, by Dr. Forest in Oregon, Cameron La Jan M. Newton, March 1979, 17 pp., Follette, Cascade Holistic Economic from: Consultants, March 1979, 144 pp., Northwest Coalition for Alternatives from: to Pesticides Oregon Student Public Interest P.O. Box 375 Research Group Eugene, OR 97440 918 S.W. Yamhill All good environmental issues must gel Pordand, OR 97205 down to economic questions at some The rapid liquidation of "old growth" point, and the issue of phenoxy herbiforests-now virtually complete on cides is no exception. With this report, industry-owned forest lands-is another the Northwest Coalition for Alternaissue that has picked up momentum with tives to Pestic.ides (Ne AP) has initiated the RARE II allocation process. Cameron a significant effort to expose the un La Follette's study adds an ecological sound economic logic often used hy dimension to the criticism of RARE II government and industry alike to proby establishing the multifarious values mote the use of such chemicals as 2,4,5in preserving a reasonable quantity of T in intensive forest management prac· old growth stands (climax associations tices. Part I of An Economic Analysis of of plant and animal communities) in Herbicide Use is a blow-for-blow cricluding their ecosystem stability and tique of a widely-quoted report released habitat diversity. But old growth often by the Oregon State Department of occurs in national forests, not candi Forestry and the U.S. Forest Service dates for wilderness, where timber is Region Six earlier this year, claiming already being harvested and the Forest huge drops in timber yields and job Service has no standardized inventories losses in the tens of thousands with the nor policies to adequately evaluate this banning of 2,4,5-T. Author Dr. Jan vital resource. Saving All the Pieces Newton concentrates on uncovering speaks to this fact and emphasizes the errors in that study's timber yield, cost need to develop an "integrated old growth system" in all National Forests. In this way, old growth stands would be strategically linked with one another in enclaves and corridors, preserving the genetic diversity essential to the maintenance of forest productivity, but not found in the surrounding, intensivelymanaged younger forests. Solid research in lay terms. in southwest Oregon and northern California. CHEC also publishes a series of Resource Bulletins on related issues (12 issues/S8 per year) and its General Forestry Papers such as the Citizens' Guide to Forestry and the Environment (Rain, AuglSept 1977). For more information on their good work, write to the above address. and employment estimates so basic that it ends up looking seriously flawed. Parts II and III of her rcport. soon to be released by NCAP, promise to provide more of the comprehensive economic perspective so sorely needed in the controversy over herbicides. For the earnestly involved activist, here is analysis neatly and clearly laid out.
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