allocation within the forest-range environment. 

 Employment and Depressed Areas 



The Study endeavors to relate the outputs 

 (primarily livestock production) to the associ- 

 ated employment of people. The identification 

 of depressed areas is necessary in order to 

 determine if the increase or decrease in employ- 

 ment is in areas known to have enduring un- 

 employment. Increases or decreases of grazing 

 output are related to areas where low income 

 persists (fig. 37). 



Flexibility 



Flexibility in systems of managing forest- 

 range ecosystems is important in the planning 

 process, for it reflects the ability to change 

 direction as new or better information becomes 

 available. Since economic growth and planning 

 are both dynamic and cyclic, decisions made in 

 allocating resources must be flexible. 



Long-term investment in high cost manage- 

 ment or improvement systems usually reduces 

 flexibility in use. A water impoundment for 

 recreation purposes in a meadow mitigates 

 against future use of a high forage-producing 

 area for grazing. 



SUMMARY 



The quality of life, human life, depends on 

 resources available, the manner in which those 

 resources are used, and institutions of the 

 people. The issue of concern in this study is the 

 total environment of the forest-range resource 

 and the satisfaction it can provide to people 

 both now and in the future. If satisfaction is 

 to be measured, it must be translated into terms 

 useable in the planning process. Therefore, the 

 demands by people for the various outputs of 



USDA photo 



Figure 37. — A depressed rural area. 



that forest-range environment must be as- 

 sessed. When both current and future satisfac- 

 tion is important, then it is necessary to project 

 demands in order to ensure that current actions 

 are so structured that future actions can fulfill 

 wants. 



The demands, current and projected, herein 

 assessed provide essential information used in 

 deciding how to use the forest-range environ- 

 ment, or how to modify that environment to 

 provide satisfaction to the people. The assess- 

 ment of demands in a systems analysis is de- 

 signed to improve the quality of the translation 

 of wants to specific outputs and to permit full 

 consideration of demands in the decisionmaking 

 processes. 



Emphasis was placed on analysis of the 

 demand for livestock grazing since it was the 

 primary element analyzed in this study. Graz- 

 ing demand also served as an example of the 

 scope such analysis requires. Estimates of other 

 demands on the environment were drawn pri- 

 marily from other studies, and precise mea- 

 surement was not attempted. In spite of the 

 difference in treatment of each demand ele- 

 ment, the importance of each as related to its 

 impact on the forest-range environment is 

 nearly equal. A complete study of all aspects 

 of the demands for the forest-range environ- 

 ment outputs will be necessary before a com- 

 plete basis for decision-making will be available 

 for other uses of this environment. 



Some conclusions about demands were made 

 in spite of existing limitations. The demand for 

 grazing will continue to increase, but at a 

 slower rate than population and other vari- 

 ables. Similarly, the demand for nearly all of 

 the outputs of the forest-range environment 

 will increase, and each has its own pattern of 

 growth and geographic distribution. The sum 

 of all the demands puts an increased pressure 

 on the resources and indicates the need to im- 

 prove the understanding and the precision for 

 applying management to the forest-range en- 

 vironment. 



REFERENCES 



Abel, Harold and Wm. Capener 



1965. Shifts in the production and marketing of 

 western stocker-feeder cattle. Wash. Agr. Exp. 

 Sta. Bui. 667, 18 p., illus. Pullman, Wash. 

 Bell, T. Donald and Morris Hemstrom 



1962. Idaho beef — growth and development of an 

 industry. Ida. Agr. Ext. Serv. Bui. 393, 15 p., illus., 

 Boise. 

 Bostwick, Don 



1968. Range livestock as a sector of commercial 



agriculture: problems and prophecies. 45 p. (Paper 



presented to Range Livestock Comm., West. Agr. 



Econ. Res. Council, Tucson, Ariz., Nov. 20, 1968.) 



Bromley, D. W., G. E. Blanch, and H. H. Stoevener 



1968. Effects of selected changes in federal land use 

 on a rural economy. Ore. Agr. Exp. Sta. Bui. 604, 

 27 p., illus. Corvallis. 



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