Over the last decade and more, the U.S. Forest Service has consistently overestimated market demand for timber from the Tongass National Forest resulting in a timber program that has been significantly and unnecessarily subsidized at the expense of other forest resources and uses. In this report we explain how the most recent Forest Service projections once again overestimate demand for Tongass timber.
More About Déjà Vu on the Tongass
The Tongass National Forest in Alaska is America’s largest national forest. Indispensable to salmon fishermen, native cultures, tourists, and local economies, this forest has a wealth of resources from scenic views to big trees to habitat for hundreds of species including wild salmon, brown bears, and whales. Unfortunately, not all resources are given equal weight by the agency charged with managing the Tongass. The U.S. Forest Service is required by law to seek to provide an annual supply of timber to meet market demand—to the extent consistent with providing for multiple use and sustained yield of all renewable forest resources. But over the last decade and more, the Forest Service has consistently overestimated market demand for timber with the result that other forest resources and uses have not been adequately valued, and the Tongass timber program has been significantly, and unnecessarily, subsidized.
In 2006, a federal court required the Forest Service to rework its exaggerated market demand projections for Tongass timber. Déjà Vu on the Tongass: How Overestimating Demand Prevents Responsible Stewardship critiques the timber demand analysis produced by the Forest Service as part of the agency’s legal obligation to amend the Tongass Land Management Plan. Authored by Pete Morton, Spencer Philips and Anne Gore, this report explains how the most recent U.S. Forest Service projections still overestimate demand. In particular, the projections are unrealistic, overly optimistic, and based on outdated market information and economic models. Not only does the Forest Service estimate that demand for Tongass timber is increasing, despite evidence to the contrary, but the agency also bases its timber demand projections on outdated assumptions about markets for Alaska timber, Alaska’s forest product mix, future opportunities for an integrated forest products industry, and Alaska’s ability to compete in the global market.
The Wilderness Society hopes that this report will bring attention to the need for a new market demand analysis, and ultimately a shift in Forest Service policy that reflects the economic realities of Southeast Alaska and supports the true economic drivers of this region and the best interests of local communities.
