183 



& 



all of these calculations together to derive a Tongass wide wildlife index of some kind. There 

 is no documentation of this procedure, which seems implausible at best. 



On Friday, February 9, TLMP Revision leader Steve Brink said that he didn't know how the 

 graph was derived, or exactly what it represented. 



Based on my perusal of FORPLAN benchmark printouts, I believe the planning team did run 

 the indicator species models, and the models showed that current and anticipated levels of 

 Tongass logging will result in dramatic reductions in wildlife populations. I am presently 

 studying these FORPLAN printouts in more detail and will pass along my conclusions soon. 



Employmect Figures Were Manipulated by the Forest Service 

 in Order to Hide Impacts 



We have seen how the Forest Service FORPLAN model disguised the effects of clearcut 

 logging on salmon habitat capability and recreation capacity. The Forest Service then took 

 these cooked figures and ran them through the agency's regional economic model, IPASS, to 

 estimate the employment effects of the benchmark runs. Since the IPASS employment 

 estimates are derived from deceptive FORPLAN output, and since that FORPLAN output 

 understates the effects of logging on fish and recreation, the IPASS estimates merely reflect the 

 limitations of the FORPLAN benchmarks. 



In addition, the Forest Service employment figures cited in the table on page 59 of the "user 

 friendly" AMS are only for the first ten years of the 150 year FORPLAN analysis schedule! 

 Recall that the FORPLAN benchmark runs deferred timber harvest in recreation places to the 

 distant future. And, salmon enhancement projects washed out declines in existing fish 

 populations. In general, FORPLAN scheduled every clearcut with poor economics or with 

 significant consequences to other resources in the distant future, subject only to the non- 

 declining timber yield constraint. 



Of course there are few employment effects in the first ten years. FORPLAN scheduled the 

 activities that cause those effects in the future, and the Forest Service hid the employment 

 consequences by reporting only the first decade figures. This appears to be a very deliberate 

 attempt to mislead the public. 



PART 3: CONCLUSION 



Political Deadlines Undermine Resource Analysis 



In my opinion, the upshot of the AMS benchmarks is this: Tongass planners have used 

 unfinished configurations of the FORPLAN computer model to program away nearly all the 

 trade-offs between timber and salmon, between timber and tourism, and between timber and 

 recreation. Nonetheless, the benchmarks do suggest that the highest and best use of riparian 

 timber is to leave it standing to protect salmon stream habitat. Overall, the benchmarks offer 

 relatively little to policy makers who are struggling to come to terms with very real land 

 allocation and management problems on the Tongass. 



My best guess as to what happened is that agency planners were forced to publish unfinished 

 work prematurely due to unrealistic deadlines. In a few cases, such as the reporting of 

 employment effects, it seems the Forest Service deliberately misrepresented their own analysis. 

 If political deadlines continue to take priority over sound resource analysis I expect to see more 

 problems with TLMP Revision information in the future. 



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