Today we're increasingly feeling the need for a new form of accounting that considers the social and environmental damage done by human activity, considering this damage in relationship to the benefits derived. Although step-by-step guides to financial accounting are common, the literature on environmental accounting is difficult, consisting of conference proceedings and incomprehensible monographs.
Owners of forests are in custody of an environmental resource, and are under pressure to manage them for both a sustainable economic yield, as well as an ecological resource. The fourth edition of Forest Management explains mathematical techniques for making forestry decisions.
Title: Forest Management: To sustain ecological, economic and social values
Authors: Lawrence S. Davis, K. Norman Johnson, Peter S. Bettinger, Theodore E. Howard
Publisher: Mc-Graw Hill press
ISBN: 0-07-032694-0
Year: 2001
Pages: 804
Libraries: Mann
Foresters have always claimed to value "sustainability", but what that means has changed over time. The foresters of Europe developed the idea of intensive management for sustained economic yield. When logging on public lands accelerated after the second world war in the US, the idea of "multiple use" management, balancing recreational value with timber production emerged. Opponents of multiple use came from the perspective of what we now call "deep ecology", believing that the best use of forests is leaving them alone. In the 80's and 90's, foresters have developed a theory of "sustainable human-forest ecosystems," based on advances in ecology and computer modeling, as well as an understanding of how forests are shaped by catastrophic events such as fires, drought, and landslides.
A few chapters in Forest Management describe the new tools that make it possible to make specific changes in policies to create environmental benefits. With computer modelling, for instance, it's possible to make an inventory of animal habitats in a forest, and project how those habitats will change over time and as a result of human activity. Although harvesting damages a forest, so do naturally occuring catastrophic events: plants and animals surviving in the forest have survived these disasters in the past, so if the pattern and method of harvesting leaves behind a similar pattern of ecological niches as would the natural calamities. It's alright, say the authors, to cut a certain amount of mature forest now, because another patch will mature and replace it.
The bulk of the book is a description of financial analysis and linear programming techniques that have been used in forestry for years. A number of examples are worked that seem to demonstrate that "sustainable forest-human ecosystems" deliver financial returns that are far below optimum. The authors obliquely mention two serious problems with financial accounting from an ecological point of view. The first is the discount rate, which is the rate of return that one can expect from a reasonably safe investment. If I can earn 5% intere st by putting money in the bank, it doesn't make sense to invest in a forestry operation that returns 4%. However, compound interest works in a pervese way. $1 invested at 5% interest would grow to $112.44 in 100 years. Therefore, it's worth saving 1 cent now to encur $1 worth of environmental damage a century from now. Planning based on a nonzero discount rate ignores the long-term consequences of our actions, and certainly isn't taking into account the "seventh generation." Another serious problem with financial accounting is that it invariably requires us to assign a monetary value to everything. Environmental accountants add satellite accounts that keep track of variables such as energy consumption, waste generation, and emissions of pollutants such as carbon dioxide, but decision-makers want everything reduced to dollar values that can be compared directly, even though any efforts to assign dollar values to environmental values are at best approximate.
Forest Management feels as if it has had a few chapters on new techniques added to a bulk of older material. Even so, it has much more detail, mathematical rigor, and specific examples than the many books on "how to manage a backyard woodlot" that one will find many of at any public library. Although the ecological planning methods it describes could be useful, they leave me with a few disturbing thoughts. In the US, we could apply ecological modelling to areas such as the Northeast and the Pacific Northwest, but it seems unlikely that these methods will stop the clearcutting in tropical regions, such as the Amazon rainforest, that are making a large contribution to global warming. Second, human knowledge is finite, so there is some chance that our projections could go wrong, or that certain species could require things that we don't keep track of in our models. Keeping as much forest untouched as possible is probably the safest thing to do. Finally, foresters armed with fancy graphics produced by computer models, even if faulty, would be in a position to intimidate, confuse and overwhelm ordinary citizens who are concerned with the fate of their forests.
The authors would probably rebut that most of our forests have already felt the hand of man and will take centuries, if not millennia, to approach something approximating a natural state. Techniques of "ecological management" would surely be better than management purely for profit, they'd say, although I fear that "ecological management" could be used as an excuse to exploit mature forests that would be otherwise untouched.
Forest Management also talks about the social impact of forestry, about the effect that gains or losses in forestry jobs have on local economies. Here again, it comes short, because it doesn't make a strong enough distinction between local and global economies. If Asian conglomerates cut down millions of acres of Brazillian rainforest which are exported as unfinished logs, this makes less money for for Brazil than would exporting a smaller quantity of finished products involving skilled labor.
Although forest cover in Tompkins County is increasing, we face controversies about land uses such as suburbanization, natural gas exploration, agriculture, and forestry. We're blessed with natural areas that should remain forever untouched, however, our forests also provide a source of fuel that doesn't contribute to global warming and that reduces our dependence on foreign oil. Proper use of our forests would create jobs here, reduce our demand for transportation, and reduce our demands on endangered ecosystems elsewhere. Making the right decisions will require widespread citizen participation. Although Forest Management has many flaws, it's worthwhile reading for anyone who wants to become informed and involved.
