Study Shows Natural Resources Small Part Of Region’s Economy

Natural resources, often touted as the mainstay for the region’s economy, are only a small part of the picture, according to a sweeping federal study.

The Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project found that logging, mining and grazing are directly responsible for only 4 percent of the area’s economy.

The project is the topic of a three-day conference attended by more than 500 people that started Monday at Spokane’s Ag Trade Center.

The project is the most comprehensive forest and rangeland study ever conceived. It was an outgrowth of President Clinton’s 1993 Forest Summit.

It looks at 144 million acres in seven states, an area the size of France, but primarily focuses on 75 million acres managed by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. The project area includes all of Idaho and Washington east of the Cascades.

The idea was that with a more comprehensive picture, species could be dealt with before they were endangered, communities could have more warning about coming changes in timber harvest, and there would be fewer lawsuits challenging logging, mining and grazing, based on claims of inadequate scientific information.

The $35 million effort, now in its fourth year, has been controversial since its inception. Members of Washington and Idaho’s congressional delegations have long opposed the project on the grounds it would decrease grazing, logging and mining on public lands and threaten private property rights.

Any new regulations inspired by the project won’t apply to private property, federal officials say. But they could result in other changes on public lands. “It means other ranching and logging families will have a clearer picture of what the future holds,” said Jim Lyons, undersecretary for natural resources and environment at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “The reality is that harvest and grazing levels may be lower than before.

“But it will be a sustainable reality,” said Lyons, one of the keynote speakers.

Not doing the study could have led to unpleasant surprises, like wildfires that threaten towns, said Thomas Quigley, who is in charge of the Forest Service’s scientific team on the project. In addition, “we clearly need to live within the mandate of the environmental regulations,” and that wasn’t going well under the status quo, he said.

Overall, “the dilemma is we really can’t provide everything everywhere,” Quigley added. “But the options do exist to provide everything somewhere.”

Instead of trying to leave snags for woodpeckers on every timber sale, for example, snags will be left only in the most productive woodpecker habitat, Quigley said.

Some of the other findings of the study:

Only 29 of 378 small communities considered in the study are both isolated and timber-dependent.

About 25 percent of the total area is in good ecological health. Most of that is on ground managed by the Forest Service and BLM.

About 45 percent of the area is in poor ecological condition.

3.2 million people live in the 100 counties assessed. That population could easily double in the next 50 years.

Before European-American settlement, about 20 percent of the area saw fires that wiped out entire stands of trees. Now, nearly half the area is at risk for that type of fire.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

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