Introduction 



The purpose of this document is to report the results of an assessment of resource 

 trends and conditions as we see them today. Analyses in the 1989 RPA Assessment 

 pointed out issues that could Influence the outlook for renewable resources in the 

 United States. The emphasis in this assessment is on analysis of these issues. In 

 addition, the supply/demand outlooks for the various renewable resources have been 

 updated where new information suggested that the outlook might change based on 

 the implications of the new information. The basic data on characteristics of forests 

 and the area of forest land have been updated to 1992 from 1987. 



The land cover, forest, and rangelands of the United States are dynamic. Natural 

 disturbances were once solely responsible for providing a random distribution of age 

 classes and structures that supported the entire spectrum of plant and animal diver- 

 sity. Human development has restricted the influence of natural disturbances, so that 

 the present condition of these lands reflects a combination of natural and human 

 influences that have direct relationships to ecosystem conditions such as biological 

 diversity and ecosystem integrity. 



Demands for renewable resources are largely driven by population, economic activity, 

 and incomes. Projections of these variables indicate that population and the economy 

 will continue to grow in the future which will induce greater use of and production from 

 the renewable forest and rangeland resources. Greater use and production will 

 continue to cause development of the types of issues analyzed in this update of the 

 1989 RPA Assessment. As these issues develop, they will be considered in future 

 analyses. 



Demands and supplies of renewable resources are dynamic. Consumers of these 

 resources accommodate the changing nature of resource supplies in various ways, 

 including adoption of technologies that change the ways renewable resource outputs 

 are used. Supplies of renewable resource outputs change in response to use, man- 

 agement, and changing environmental laws. Resource owners and managers re- 

 spond to the changing demands by varying the amount and character of resource 

 supplies. In the future, as in the past, accommodations will be made between de- 

 mands and supplies through policy actions, regulations, and management to influence 

 the amount, quality, and value of renewable resource outputs and conditions. These 

 accommodations will determine the nature and extent of the future forest and range- 

 land estate, with a special challenge to sustain the health and long-term productivity 

 to include all values of forest and rangelands. 



Some of the key assumptions and findings from the 1989 RPA Assessment have 

 been updated to reflect new data and expectations about the future. Additional 

 analyses have been done with the following highlights. 



Highlights 



The Political and Social Environment for Management of Renewable Resources 

 Is Changing 



— In the late 1980's and culminating in the United Nations Conference on 

 Environment and Development (UNCED) meeting in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, 



