Does environmental protection really cause timber
workers to lose their jobs? An article by University of Wisconsin
sociologist Bill Freudenburg says no. His peer-reviewed study
tracks employment numbers through three flashpoints of the modern
environmental movement: 1964, when the Wilderness Act became law;
the advent of Earth Day in 1970; and the northern spotted owl
controversy of the early “90s. His conclusion: Employment increased
during this time, all supposedly rough years for those in logging.
Freudenburg also finds that from 1947 to 1964, a time unencumbered
by environmental regulations, the timber industry lost jobs.
Freudenburg explains that most of the old-growth forests had been
logged at an unsustainable rate, causing many mills to shut down
before federal regulations came into play. “If there is a real
connection between environmental protection and job loss, it
doesn’t come from too much protection today,” he writes. “It comes
from not having had enough environmental protection in earlier
decades.”
“Forty Years of Spotted Owls’ was
published in the February/March 1998 issue of Sociological
Perspectives. Copies are $20 from JAI Press, Inc., P.O. Box 811,
100 Prospect St., Stamford, CT 06904.
* Stanley
Yung
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Spotted owls vs. jobs?.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
