The Forest Service drastically overestimated the
number of trees it could cut from Northwest forests, according to
the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
The GAO found that the Forest Service exaggerated allowable sale
quantities for three of the most productive forests in the region –
the Deschutes, Gifford Pinchot and Mount Hood. In the Deschutes
forest, for example, the proposed annual harvest was 97.8 million
board-feet of timber in 1993. Yet only 2.7 million board-feet was
available for logging. The Forest Service had failed to consider
all the factors that have an impact on the harvest, such as
set-asides for sensitive plant and animal species. The Forest
Service also based some projections on aerial photographs and
sample tracts that were not representative of the timber available,
the GAO found. Protection of the northern spotted owl in 1990
created further inaccuracies, since several areas once slated for
logging became off-limits. The result: The GAO advised Congress
that it cannot expect Northwest forests to reach predicted yields.
Factors Affecting Timber Sales in Five National
Forests (GAO/RCED-95-12) is available from the GAO, P.O. Box 6015,
Gaithersburg, MD 20884-6015
(202/512-6000).
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline You can’t cut them all.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
