OCR Text |
Show icant is the fact that much private forest land is made unavailable for timber harvesting because of the increasing ownership of forest lands by people interested primarily in recreation values. Lack of assurance that public land timber will be available for harvesting in the future results in: -Lack of security for investment planning by timber industry firms using public land timber, and a concomitant unwillingness to modernize their plants and equipment; -Short-range planning by communities whose economies are dependent on timber harvested from the public lands; -Unwillingness on the part of the Bureau of the Budget to recommend needed levels of investments in timber management; -Concern over the country's ability to continue to meet increasing levels of consumption of wood products without a substantial increase in timber prices; -Resistance to all proposals, however meritorious, to withdraw public land from timber harvesting. The fact is that the purposes of the 1897 Organic Act3 of the Forest Service, whose major aim was to assure future timber supplies, have been obscured by changing conditions and needs. Yet, the United States continues to require timber and wood products in increasing quantities. The Commission believes that these and other requirements can best be met by the identification of highly productive areas of public forest lands administered by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, their classification for commercial timber production as the dominant use, and their inclusion in separate timber management systems. To manage these systems separately from other public lands, there should be created a Federal timber corporation or division within the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.* In harmony with our belief that effective multiple use planning can be accomplished only by classifying lands for their highest and best uses, lands classified for inclusion in this system would be those that are capable of efficient, high quality timber production, and are not uniquely valuable for other uses. By no means would all of the public lands currently defined by the Forest Service as "commercial forest lands" be included in the system. The Forest Service definition, for example, requires, among other things, that such lands be capable of producing at least 25 316 U.S.C. §§ 473-478, 479-482, 551 (1964). 4 If merger of the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior is accomplished, as recommended in Chapter Twenty, Organization, Administration, and Budgeting Policy, merger into one system should be possible. cubic feet of timber per acre per year. This standard excludes only those forest lands of the very poorest quality. Much of the land defined as commercial is at higher elevations in the West or on ridges or swamps of low productivity in the East. The Commission does not intend that these lower quality timber-lands be included in timber production units. Most of the forest lands to be included in such units are in Alaska, California, Idaho, western Montana, Oregon, Washington, and the southern states. These lands are highly productive; for example, about 70 percent of the national forest lands in the Douglas-fir region of Oregon and Washington is capable of producing more than 85 cubic feet per acre per year. These areas are already the ones where the greatest wood processing capacity is located. However, there are other areas of public lands that should be considered for inclusion in such units. The decision should rest on the merits of each case. Criteria for establishing timber production as a dominant use on public forest lands must involve consideration of other existing or potential uses. Those lands having a unique potential for other uses should not be included in timber production units. Critical watersheds, for example, where cutting may be prohibited or sharply limited, should not be included. Similarly, important, or potentially important, intensive recreation use sites close to urban areas should not be included. On the other hand, watershed, recreation, or other uses would not be precluded on lands in the system. Timber production should be the dominant use, but secondary uses should be permitted wherever they are compatible with the dominant use. Generally these areas would be available for recreation use except during the period when timber is being harvested and the time thereafter required to permit new growth to get started. It may also be necessary to impose greater restrictions than now exist on grazing during periods when timber stands are being regenerated. The actual limitations placed on other uses would not be as severe as they might appear at first glance. The best sites for timber growing are mostly at lower or middle elevations in the West and in the southern states. In the West, outdoor recreation use tends to occur at the higher elevations where the scenery is more spectacular, where there is snow for winter sports, and where the ground cover is more open and suitable for hiking and other summer sports. The conflicts resulting from outdoor recreation on the better national forest timber production areas in the South occur less frequently than in other regions. The total area that would be included in timber production units would probably be less than one-half of the total forest land now in Federal ownership, and less than one-fourth of the total area of the na- 93 |