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- Info
Multiple-use management: The economics of public forestlands
| Author: |
Krutilla, John V.; Bowes, Michael D. |
| Date: |
1989 |
| Periodical: |
Washington, DC: Resources for the Future |
| Abstract: |
It is important to address the problem of multiple-use management of the public forestlands with the hope that this effort may contribute to more efficient management. Needless to say, it is also our hope that this study will be used to complement the instructional material used in forestry curricula for upper-division undergraduates and graduate students of forestry economics. The second reason we have written this book is that the new forest management legislation includes many references to economic considerations substantially more than in any previous legislation affecting the public lands. This legislation permits the Forest Service to apply economic principles to its management of the national forests largely at its own discretion, and even may require it to do so in regard to certain forest planning and management activities. The staple economics of forest management at the time we began our study might best be characterized as predominantly the economics of managing timber stands rather than public forestlands having a number of priced and nonpriced forest outputs. The need for an update and elaboration of the economic theory applicable to problems of multiple-use management of public forestland became apparent to us. How to accomplish this was not immediately obvious. It became clear in time, however, that such a theory would have to accommodate the consideration of multiple interdependent sites or stands in order to reflect the biological diversity on which multiple forest outputs depend. Part 1 of this study (chapters 1 to 4) provides a brief historical and institutional background to set the stage. It also presents a rigorous theoretical treatment of multi-output production in a forest environment. Part 2 consists of a set of applied studies intended to illustrate multiple use and joint production in concrete forest settings. A number of lively issues are addressed in chapters 5 through 10. The final chapter attempts an interpretive synthesis of what we have learned, and we trust that it will be equally instructive to our readers. |
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