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PART 2: BENCHMARK ANALYSES 



Background 



The resource benchmarks in the Forest Service's "user-friendly" version of the TLMP Revision 

 Analysis of the Management Situation are based on the mathematical calculations of a linear 

 program called FORPLAN. FORPLAN is a mathematical sketch of certain resource qualities. 

 Like most sketches, it reflects a certain amount of the world view of its creators: Forest 

 Service timber sale planners. Because it is a mathematical sketch, the legitimacy of the sketch 

 depends on the quality of the numbers that go into its calculations. 



The purpose of FORPLAN benchmarks is to describe the maximum productive potential for 

 each forest resource, complying with law but otherwise disregarding other resources. 

 Benchmarks are not intended to describe the resource interactions of the forest ecosystem; they 

 merely set outside bounds for more detailed management alternatives to be developed. 

 FORPLAN analysis is capable of displaying economic information, such as opportunity costs 

 and shadow prices, but this type of work is rarely done in National Forest benchmarks. 



FORPLAN itself is actually a large set of tables that list potential resource management 

 activities, such as timber sales, along with each activity's forecasted costs and revenues, as well 

 as other attributes associated with each management option, such as pounds of fish or millions 

 of board feet of timber. The tables are complex, and the values in each table effect the 

 outcome of FORPLAN calculations. 



FORPLAN schedules the different possible management options so that the value is maximized, 

 subject to resource and budget constraints. The constraints control how much of what 

 (logging, road building, salmon enhancement projects, etc.) the computer is allowed to schedule 

 when. In addition, since all values are discounted to the present, the discount rate also plays a 

 role in how FORPLAN schedules management options. 



The cost & value tables, and the resource/budget constraints determine what FORPLAN does 

 and what the benchmark numbers will look like. The tables are supposed to be based on , 

 resource inventories, economic analysis, and mathematical models of future timber growth. 

 The quality of this information is highly variable; the Tongass timber volume class data is very 

 poor, yet it drives much of the timber cost measures and affects the annual sale quantity. A 

 few basic constraints are required by law in benchmarks, but in general benchmark runs are so 

 unconstrained that they tell us little about real forest management options. 



General Problems With the Tongass Benchmarks 



High Grading and Economic Inefficiency Are Built Into Timber Schedules 



All Tongass AMS benchmarks schedule timber sales over a ISO year time frame, and use a 4% 

 discount rate. And, because the Forest Service assessment of tentatively suitable timber land 

 did not address timber operability and did not include an economic analysis, a great deal of 

 very uneconomic timber and timber that is impractical to log is available to FORPLAN to 

 schedule for harvest. Most important, there is no budget constraint in any benchmark, so 

 timber is assumed harvestable regardless of cost --FORPLAN thinks that the taxpayers' pockets 

 are infinitely deep! 



FORPLAN chooses the timber harvest schedule that maximizes present net value, subject to a 

 constraint that annual average harvests will not decline over time ("non-declining even flow"). 

 To do this, FORPLAN schedules the most valuable timber for harvest as soon as possible. It 

 schedules the "dogs", sales that lose a lot of money or are otherwise poor investments, way out 



