National Resources Committee 



nities and public facilities. The end of the virgin 

 timber is in sight in many parts of the Region. The 

 idea of sustained yield is to supply local industrj' with 

 raw material in perpetuity in order that dependent 

 industries may operate continuously. Sustained yield, 

 therefore, is the general designation for the strategy of 

 a long campaign to be put into full effect promptly and 

 prosecuted scientifically, systematically, relentlessly, 

 resourcefully, and yet flexibly, over a long period of 

 years, to solve this problem. 



Sustained yield should be recognized as including not 

 merely control over the rate of cutting, but such essen- 

 tial companion measures as the reproduction of the 

 forest, protection from fire and disease, reduction of 

 waste, and more complete utilization of the production. 

 Also, it shoidd be recognized as covering not only the 

 maintenance of the yield of timber and other wood 

 products and byproducts, but also the conservation of 

 the great multiple-use values of forest land, including 

 recreation, range, wildlife, soil conservation, watershed 

 protection, and so on. 



Tliis general problem has had, for several decades, 

 recognition by many persons interested in forest and 

 general conservation. From the begmning, a few years 

 ago, of the present movement in public works and re- 

 sources planning in the United States, the subject has 

 had augmented attention from overall national, regional, 

 and State planning viewpoints. The forest problem has 

 been recognized from the first, by the planning boards 

 of this region, as one of the major questions requiring 

 attention. 



However, it is believed that the general forest prob- 

 lem, with its serious thi-eat of eventual depletion, has 

 had far from enough public, political governmental, 

 and industrial recognition and action. The obtaining 

 of necessary broader recognition, and the demonstration 

 of the relationships of tliis resource to other problems 

 of conservation and social and economic advancement 

 are conceived as logical objectives of the present plan- 

 ning work of the State, regional, and national planning 

 agencies. 



The Columbia Basin study, of 1935, made by the 

 Regional Planning Commission, gave considerable 

 attention to the forest resource and the forest problem. 

 A basic article on the forest resource, its problems and 

 requirements, was prepared in collaboration with the 

 Forest Service.' The staff report of the Columbia 

 Basin study - emphasized the importance of the forest 

 resource in the economy of the Pacific Northwest; the 

 prospect of its depletion and the economic significance 

 of such depletion. Sustained-jneld nuinagement was 



' Appendix N, Columbia Basin study, The Forestry Problem in the Columbia River 

 Basin States, October 15, 1935 (Pacific Northwest Regional Planning Commission). 



• Regional Planning, Part I^Pacific Northwest (National Resources Committee, 

 May 1936). 



discussed as the logical approach to the solution of the 

 problem — generally substituting stabilization for present 

 insecurity, permanent communities for characteristic 

 migratory towns, permanent capital and tax structures 

 for vanishing financial resources, and, in short, substitut- 

 ing a system of "living oft"" forest income for one of 

 "living off" forest capital. 



The Regional Planning Commission, in its general 

 view of the futm-e of the region included in the same 

 report, envisioned the possible depletion of the forest 

 resource as the most serious threat to normal and logical 

 regional progress and as the negative factor most likely, 

 without the establishment of sustained yield, to offset 

 the many favorable factors which should influence 

 Pacific Northwest regional development. 



In its covering statement for the same study, the 

 National Resources Committee recorded that it was 

 "impressed by the present key importance of the forest 

 industiy in the economy of the Pacific Northwest 

 Region"; that this resoiu-ce is "the basic supply for the 

 Nation of this great raw material"; that it supports a 

 high percentage of the population of the region, and 

 that "the maintenance of the timber industry is of 

 crucial importance to the welfare of the region." It 

 also emphasized the high ratio of depletion to current 

 annual growth. 



The Regional Planning Commission cannot stress too 

 strongly the seriousness of the threat of depletion, and 

 the urgent need for conservation of the resource. The 

 Commission has not been unaware of the frequently 

 expressed sopliistry that when one soiu-ce of energy is 

 exhausted another \\i.\\ be found to take its place. This 

 theory reduces to absiudity. Losses of basic resources, 

 such as those of the soil, are certain to be felt in the 

 long rim, as is amply proven in the history of many 

 great areas and civilizations. Although science and 

 technology may compensate in part for losses, wastes of 

 basic resources are concrete and the general result, if 

 not apparent net loss, is an actual loss through failure to 

 reaUze full potential gains in real wealth and human 

 well-being. There can be no justification for needless 

 waste. 



In the case of the forest resource, many values to be 

 lost through depletion are irreplaceable. This truth 

 would become increasinglj^ evident as the resource were 

 diminished. Even more definitely irreplaceable than 

 those of the wood and its industrial products are the 

 accessory physical-geographic, economic, and social 

 values involved in the forests. 



The Study 



The present study of the forest resource of the Pacific 

 Northwest has grown out of the general Columbia Basin 

 study. The wide scope of the earlier study and the 



