Subject:  U.S. Spotted Owl Controversy Didn't Cause Massive Job Losses
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10/23/99
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY
The doomsday scenarios of economic ruin if the last ancient forests 
are spared from industrial logging ring hollow.  In the case of the 
Pacific Northwest of the United States, where logging was reduced due 
to the infamous spotted owl controversy, it was found that downsizing 
of logging did not cause massive job losses.  Indeed, holding on to 
relatively functioning ecosystems has contributed to the economy of 
the region.
g.b.

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Title:   Report: Spotted owl controversy didn't cause overall massive 
         job losses
Source:  Associated Press
Status:  Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint 
Date:    October 22, 1999

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) -- As painful as it may have been to the logging 
industry, the Northwest's economy didn't suffer massive job losses 
after the federal curtailment of logging to protect old growth 
forests and the northern spotted owl in the early 1990s, three Eugene 
economists say.

They conclude in their new report, "The Sky Did Not Fall: The Pacific 
Northwest's Response to Logging Reductions" that the economy likely 
performed better in Oregon and Washington because of the forest 
protection efforts.

"Mounting evidence indicates the region has prospered in part because 
of logging reductions. Standing forests are now often more valuable 
to the economy than logged ones," said Ernie Niemi of ECONorthwest, a 
Eugene economic consulting company. Ed Whitelaw and Andrew Johnson of 
ECONorthwest were the co-authors.

The performance of the region's economy this decade flies in the face 
of dire predictions from the timber industry and many politicians, 
the economists said.

But timber industry officials contend that most of the good times are 
in urban areas or along the Interstate 5 corridor. Many small towns 
dependent on federal logging are hurting, they said.

Industry representatives also rejected ECONorthwest's argument that 
the economy is growing because old growth forest protections are 
making the region a better place to live.

"I haven't seen any reliable scientific study to show that all these 
jobs are coming into the Northwest because we've stopped logging," 
said Ross Mickey, a spokesman for the Northwest Forestry Association.

Two local examples are Hyundai and Sony, which opened large 
manufacturing plants in Eugene-Springfield during the 1990s,
Mickey said.

"Hyundai didn't come here because we stopped logging. They came here 
because we gave them a big tax break. Sony is the same," he said.

Federal lawsuits won by environmentalists in the early 1990s and 
President Clinton's 1994 forest plan reduced federal logging in the 
region by about 80 percent. Industry officials and politicians 
predicted the region would lose up to 150,000 jobs.

That never materialized, according to the report, which was funded by 
the Sierra Club of British Columbia and the Earthlife Canada 
Foundation.

Wood products employment fell by more than 27,000 jobs between 1979 
and 1989, before the big logging cutbacks, and then dropped by 
another 21,000 jobs by 1996 as federal timber harvests declined.

But the report says only about 9,300 of those lost jobs were due to 
old growth forest protection; market conditions were to blame for the 
rest.

Meanwhile, the region has added tens of thousands of jobs every year. 
Since 1994, the annual increase in jobs in the Pacific Northwest has 
exceeded the total number of timber industry jobs, according to the 
report.

"Cast your mind back. The prediction was that Oregon would descend 
into becoming timber Appalachia. That was fantastically wrong; it 
wasn't even close," said David Bayles, conservation director for the 
Pacific Rivers Council in Eugene.

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