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A Regional Forest Program 
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ERMANENT forest the 
Douglas-fir region might be achieved by (1) 
public regulation, (2) public acquisition of 
forests, or (3) cooperation between public and 
private forest agencies to consummate sustained- 
yield plans. It is extremely unlikely that any one 
of these methods will be used exclusively; probably 
two or all three of them will be combined. Past 
progress toward stable forest-land use has resulted 
principally from legislation piece-meal, an essen- 
tially slow process. 
Permanent forest management will not be at- 
management in 
tained by any of these means until the people of the 
region thoroughly understand the inevitable conse- 
quence of continuing present practices and the 
results to be expected from sustained-yield manage- 
ment. 
program is to make these facts clear to the public, 
pointing out the full significance of sustained yield 
and the problems involved in putting it into effect. 
Therefore, the first step in a regional forest 
This is a task of great magnitude. In view of the 
economic and social values involved, it should be 
the function of a technical organization financed by 
Federal and State forest agencies with the coopera- 
tion of private owners’ trade associations. Existing 
inventory, growth, and depletion data gathered in 
the forest survey are sufficient for all the initial 
calculations. 
Any program for making the forests of the region 
continuously productive, and thereby assuring to 
industrial communities a reasonably stable supply 
of raw material, conflicts with urgent present de- 
Some districts 
undercutting. The overcutting districts possess 
mands. are overcutting, others 
natural geographic advantages, established indus- 
tries, and comparatively large populations; the 
undercutting districts lack geographic advantages, 
135 
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have few forest industries, are sparsely populated, 
and have timber supplies large in quantity but, on 
the average, of poorer quality than the timber now 
being cut. Owing to the excellent water-transpor- 
tation facilities, most industrial communities can 
draw on more adjacent forest territory for raw ma- 
terial than can communities in inland forest regions. 
This tends toward concentric cuttings around eas- 
ilv accessible and established sawmill communities, 
and as a result, there is extreme overcutting in this 
tributary territory and undercutting elsewhere. 
Sawmills can be dismantled in a cut-over district 
and logging equipment moved without too great a 
sacrifice, but not so community development. 
When schools, water and sewer systems, and other 
civic improvements are abandoned because of the 
approach of timber depletion and industrial disin- 
tegration the taxpayers and in fact the entire popu- 
lation suffer a heavy loss. 
The immediate need is to shift from liquidation 
to sustained-yield forest management on areas 
without 
The wood- 
using industries of overcutting localities endeavor 
where forest conditions are favorable, 
dislocation of labor and commerce. 
to maintain existing rates of production even in 
the face of certain radical curtailment within one 
or two decades. 
immediate application of sustained-yield practices 
The reduction of cut involved in 
seems too sacrificial of local interests, in spite of 
the known consequences of failure to do so. 
Obviously, stabilization of ownership and other 
economic readjustments are necessary before sus- 
tained-yield management can be generally adopted 
in the region. Application of a region-wide sus- 
tained-yield program would be gradual. Most 
of the forest land that should be used for continu- 
ous production of forest crops could, however, 
