NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/talk/environm/2914

Internet Message Format | 1992-07-23 | 1.8 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!psuvax1!psuvm!mek104
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 10:14:11 EDT
From: <[e-mail]>
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: Libertarians & the environment
Lines: 31

in <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:


>...Well, if you're in the lumber business, and you reached the point where
>you couldn't expect to move on to a different forest after you'd clearcut
>those you have now, ...

I know this wasn't the purpose of your posting, but it appears that you have
some misconception about how the timber industry opperates these days.  In
the early 1800's your hypothetical would have been quite accurate:
cut-out-and-get-out was the rule and timber barrons raced each other to get
to the next stand of timber.  That kind of thing doesn't go on any more - to
any noticeable degree at least.

>...  if you realize that as your competitors cut the last of their forests,
>the lumber in yours will become more valuable.  There are feedback loops in
>privately owned productive resources that simply don't occur when you've
>got a government deciding what will and won't be cut.  Especially when the
>government can be lobbied into giving away the resources to the first
>person who's ready to step in and liquidate them.

From my perspective you came close to hitting one of the problems.  I think
congress often tends to muck things up when they place conditions and
restrictions on forest management policy.  For example, if the USFS wants to
maintain a certain tract of land in timber production rather than designate
it as wilderness, congress will often place harvest quotas on that tract.
The result is timber harvest for the sake of the quota and not necessarily
what the market demands or what is ecologically sound forest management.


Mark