No abstract

In this article, our objective is to introduce economics as a tool for the planning, prioritization, and evaluation of restoration projects. Studies that develop economic estimates of public values for ecological restoration employ methods that may be unfamiliar to practitioners. We hope to address this knowledge gap by describing economic concepts in the context of ecological restoration. We have summarized the most common methods for estimating the costs and benefits of restoration projects as well as frameworks for decision analysis and prioritization. These methods are illustrated in a review of the literature as it applies to terrestrial restoration in the United States, with examples of applications of methods to projects. Our hope is that practitioners will consider collaborating with economists to help ensure that restoration costs and benefits are identified and understood.

No abstract

The first decade of the Twenty-first Century proved tumultuous for the West's forest products industry. A strong economy, low interest rates, easy access to credit, and real estate speculation fostered more than two million U.S. housing starts in 2005 and record lumber consumption from 2003 to 2005. With the decline in U.S. housing beginning in 2006, the 2008 global financial crisis, an over 50-year record low 554,000 housing starts in 2009, wood product prices and production fell dramatically. In 2009 and 2010, virtually every major western mill suffered curtailments and 30 large mills closed permanently. Sales value of wood and paper products in the West dropped from $49 billion in 2005 to $34 billion in 2009. Employment declined by 71,000 workers and lumber production fell by almost 50 percent from 2005 to 2009. Capacity utilization at sawmills and other timber-using facilities in the West fell from over 80 percent in 2005 to just over 50 percent in 2009 and 2010. With the exception of exports and some paper markets, U.S. wood products markets have improved little since the recession officially ended in 2009. Modest improvements are expected in domestic markets in the short term but substantial improvements are unlikely until 2014 or later, as U.S. home building recovers and global demand increases. Much of the West retains the bulk of its pre-recession (2006) capacity and mills could respond quickly to increased demand spurred by economic recovery.

This article describes trends in three measures of lumber recovery for sawmills in the western United States: lumber overrun (LO), lumber recovery factor (LRF), and cubic lumber recovery (CLR). All states and regions showed increased LO during the last three decades. Oregon and Montana had the highest LO at 107 and 100 percent, respectively. Alaska had the lowest LO at 31 percent, followed by the Four Corners Region (i.e., Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah). Because sawmills in the western United States use the Scribner Log Rule (SLR) as the unit of log input, higher LO is not a clear indication that mills are using improved sawing technology and techniques. At best, LO is an imprecise measure of production efficiency. Better measures of lumber output per unit input include LRF and CLR. These measures are substantially better than LO because they are based on the cubic volume of solid wood fiber in a log, thus eliminating a number of the problems associated with the SLR. Oregon, followed by Washington, had the highest LRF (8.67 and 8.43 board feet lumber tally per cubic foot of logs, respectively) and the highest CLR (52% and 50%, respectively). Alaska had the lowest LRF and CLR. Changes in LRF and CLR suggest that sawmills in the western United States have used improved sawing technology and techniques to increase the volume of lumber recovered even as log sizes have decreased.