Imagine you own a T-shirt shop in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. At the start of the tourist season, you order two types of T-shirts: one that has a picture of Monica Lewinsky smoking a cigar, and another one depicting a black bear momma and her cubs.
Two months into the peak tourist season, you can't keep the black bear shirt on the racks, they're selling so fast. But you haven't sold even one Monica shirt. Nevertheless, you don't re-stock the bear shirt and order six more boxes of Monica shirts. By the end of the summer, you'd be out of business, right?
That's how business is supposed to work, under the rules of supply and demand. But that's not how the U.S. Forest Service does business. Although recreation on our national forests creates more than 30 times the income and jobs that logging does, the Forest Service continues to spend millions on its logging program while paying a pittance to recreation (see graph.)
Meanwhile, the Forest Service's timber program continues to lose millions in tax dollars each year. Since 1992, the timber program has lost $1.5 billion, according to the Government Accounting Office. This means taxpayers are paying private timber companies to log our public forests, even though their recreational value brings in far more money.
How can this be, you ask? You can thank Congress. Our elected officials in Washington set unrealistic timber targets to keep the supply of cheap, subsidized logs flowing out of the national forests. In return, they get hefty campaign contributions from the timber industry. Rep. Charles Taylor of North Carolina is a classic example. He took in $44,849 in timber money during his last election bid, and voted against eliminating costly logging road subsidies in 1998.
Logging on our national forests is simply not worth it anymore. For one, national forests produce only 3.9% of our nation's wood. A 1987 Forest Service report admitted, "Timber output from the National Forests is not significant to regional and local economies." Global market pressures have driven down prices for timber, while laborsaving devices have reduced the number of timber workers. A 1997 Forest Service study predicts that "the number of jobs and the amount of income generated per acre logged will become smaller and smaller."
On the other hand, recreation on our national forests is booming. In 1995, recreation in our region generated $5.8 billion in expenditures and created 100,700 jobs, according to the Forest Service and other agencies. Yet recreation isn't getting funding from Congress - logging is. From 1986-1991, the Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee got only 43% of its recreation budget appropriated, while 97% of its logging budget was funded.
Not only is this unequitable treatment, it also flies in the face of simple supply-and-demand economics. Recreational visitation to the Cherokee in 1992 generated more than $807 million in spending for communities near its borders, while timber production on the Cherokee lost money that year and most likely repelled visitors (and their checkbooks.) Regionwide, demand for recreation on national forests is skyrocketing, fueled by urbanites trying to escape the cities. In 1994, the Forest Service recorded 835 million visits, up 40% since 1991.
And it's not just developed campsites these folks are seeking. A 1996 survey by the Forest Service found 67% of respondents agreed with the statemente, "More public land should be set aside as wilderness." Indeed, the Forest Service's own data shows that demand for wilderness recreation will exceed supply by 1.4 million acres by 2005. Wilderness recreation generated $64 million dollars for our regional economy in 1995.
The facts speak for themselves: rafting, fishing, bird-watching, hiking, camping and mountain biking are far more valuable uses of our national forests than timbering. Logging detracts from these recreational, pursuits, and loses tax money in the process. It's time to end logging on public lands and put the money we'll save into healing the land.