Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl - DRAFT

The sustainable yield concept that underlies most modem forest managementrelies in part on the fact that regenerated forests grow more rapidly than theold-growth they replace. Simply stated, sustainable yield harvesting of timberlimits the removal of timber to the rate at which timber can be regrown withinthe management area. The growth in regenerated forests is considered insetting the rate of cutting of old-growth.There has been considerable debate about whether the past level of federaltimber harvest in the Pacific Northwest is, in fact, sustainable. This is acomplex issue and its resolution is beyond the scope of the Recovery Team'sresponsibility. The level of future timber harvest that would occur if there wereno owl conservation is the baseline for the analysis of the economic effects ofthe recovery plan. If harvest levels in coming decades turn out to be lowerthan they were during the 1980s or are lower than indicated by current forestplans, then timber industry employment and timber revenues also will belower, even without owl conservation. The economic losses resulting from alower baseline harvest should not be attributed to owl conservation measures.However, it is important to recognize that economic losses resulting from otherdeclines in timber harvesting will be exacerbated by the costs of protecting owlhabitat. Removal of forestlands from the timber base to protect owl habitatmay have spillover effects on the rate of timber sales in federal forests. Furthermore,timber dependent communities may be less able to adapt to theeffects of owl conservation because of the effects of other declines in timberharvest. For the purposes of this analysis, however, the costs attributable tothe need to protect owl habitat were treated as independent from costs associatedwith reductions in the baseline harvest level.The problem posed by the owl's need for extensive areas of commerciallyvaluable old-growth and mature forest is evident in a few statistics. Althoughthe variety of definitions of old-growth makes assessment of trends somewhatconfusing, it is clear that the trend has been sharply downward. For example,Booth estimated the amount of prelogging old-growth 200 years or older. Priorto the start of logging, an estimated 19.8 million acres of old-growth werepresent in western portions of Oregon and Washington (Booth 1991). By theearly 1980s, more that 80 percent of this original old-growth had disappeared,with federal lands containing most of the residual old-growth (Booth 1991).Haynes (1986) estimated that about 3.5 million acres of old-growth forests (200years or older) remained on nonwilderness lands. Another source, the ISCreport, cited an estimate that 17.5 million acres of suitable habitat wereavailable for owls in 1800 (Thomas et al. 1990). By the 1990s, only about 7.1million acres were available. The Forest Service recently produced estimates ofold-growth by gathering information from a wide range of forestland owners.Reports from various owners use different definitions of old-growth. Thissurvey estimates that there currently are 10.4 million acres of old-growth, ofwhich 8.8 million acres are on federal land, including wilderness areas andnational parks.In the 1980s, old-growth harvest on federal lands proceeded at about 3 to 4billion board feet per year, mostly by clear-cutting. Although inventories ofspotted owl habitat are not available to measure its decline during this period,habitat would have continued to decline steeply because of this rate of harvest.On the economic side of the balance, old-growth harvests from federal landswere worth more than $1 billion per year, providing substantial revenue thatwas shared between the U.S. Treasury and the state and county governments.Direct employment in the timber and wood products industries that depend onthe supply of logs from old-growth harvests of federal lands has provided jobsto about 30,000 people.542