Introduction to Opportunities To Increase Forest Productivity 
J. Lamar Beasley (1) 
| am pleased at the opportunity to be with you 
here today and to introduce the speakers, who will 
discuss in detail the opportunities to increase forest 
productivity. Before | do that, however, | would like 
to give you a little background on the southern tim- 
ber study. 
In the early 1980's, we became concerned 
about the rapidly changing timber situation in the 
South and, after consultation with the major forestry 
interests, got the study underway. Its basic purpose 
is to determine what kind of forest is evolving, what 
its economic and environmental implications are, 
and what opportunities we have to grow the forest 
that will be of greatest benefit to the South and the 
Nation. 
In analyzing the economic implications of the 
evolving forest, we looked at a number of things 
such as product output, prices, trade, employment, 
and wages and salaries in the forest industries, and 
investments in plants and equipment. Over a long 
period of time we have developed analytical sys- 
tems to deal with such economic implications. 
When we began to look at the environmental impli- 
cations, however, we faced a different situation. 
Changes in timber resources, and associated 
changes in management, start a complex system of 
changes in the forest environment and on all the 
products and uses of forest land and associated 
(1) J. Lamar Beasley is Director of the Southeastern Forest 
Experiment Station, USDA Forest Service, Asheville, 
NC. 
waters. 
Because Of limitations on time, data, and analyt- 
ical systems, it was impossible to deal with all these 
changes in a meaningful way. However, we did un- 
dertake to quantify the impacts on forage produc- 
tion, wildlife abundance, fish abundance, and water 
quantity. We developed the necessary data base 
and analytical systems, but we were not able to do 
this in time to put the results in the review draft. We 
now have the preliminary results, and these are out 
for review. They will be published in our final report. 
We think we have taken a big step forward. For 
the first time, we have quantified the impact of 
changes in timber resources and timber manage- 
ment on some important parts of the forest environ- 
ment. We are working to build on this. We will have 
a much more complete analysis in the Assessment 
of Renewable Resources that will be completed in 
1989 in response to requirements in the Forest and 
Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act. 
We have made some other major improvements 
in our analysis of the timber situation, especially in 
the analysis of prospective resource changes. We 
have been able, again for the first time, to prepare 
realistic projections at the State level. 
We have also made great progress in our analy- 
sis of the economic opportunities to increase timber 
supplies. | want to turn to that now. The purpose of 
this afternoon's in-depth discussion of the opportu- 
nities is to give you material you can use in develop- 
ing policy and program alternatives tomorrow. 
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