Chapter V 

 ANALYSIS OF ALTERNATIVE MIXTURES OF RESOURCE USE 



This chapter presents selected policy alterna- 

 tives constructed from the technology and in- 

 formation discussed earlier. The alternatives 

 tested are defined and discussed and the utility 

 of FRES and FREPAS is shown. Information 

 on the resource base and its estimated responses 

 to changes in management is associated with 

 the information on costs and demands, and is 

 applied within needed environmental, political, 

 social, and economic constraints so as to meet 

 policy requirements. Each alternative selected 

 for evaluation was measured against broad 

 policy objectives of the Federal Government. 



A series of alternatives was tested, and 

 each alternative was built on the information 

 developed by the previous one. In this way 

 knowledge was acquired as to how the system 

 operated with respect to the critical issues. 



This analysis could have been reported on 



the basis of impacts and changes occurring by 

 ecosystem, ecogroup, State, geographic area, 

 Forest Service administrative region or nation- 

 ally, separately or in combination. However, 

 the quantity of data generated would have been 

 massive and would not have significantly in- 

 creased understanding of the system.. Detail 

 was omitted, therefore, but throughout this 

 Chapter some observations and individual 

 items of data are included to illustrate the full 

 range and depth of analysis possible. 



The alternatives are measured against the 

 projected demands, the existing resource situa- 

 tion, the changes in investment costs, and 

 changes in efficiency of investment. 



DATA USED AS BASE POINT 



The resource situation existing in 1970 was 

 used as the base for evaluating all alternatives. 

 The basic function of this 1970 resource inven- 

 tory in evaluating alternatives was the assign- 

 ment of current management strategies to each 

 resource unit and the estimation of the produc- 

 tion of outputs. The Resource Situation-1970 

 was the best estimate of the proportion of land 

 that was being managed under each strategy 

 in 1970. Now Policy was the second base point 

 and was an estimate of the proportion of area 

 planned (as of 1970) to be subjected to each of 

 the six management strategies by year 2000. 



The Resource Situation-1970 and the Now 

 Policy represent evaluation points to which 

 the alternatives can be compared. The impact 

 of an alternative, therefore, was measured in 

 terms of change from these benchmarks. The 

 Resource Situation-1970 was also used as the 

 basis for establishing the constraints. Limita- 

 tions on changes are computed from the acre- 

 ages that existed in 1970. 



DESCRIPTION OF SELECTED 

 ALTERNATIVES 



The alternatives tested were designed to pro- 

 vide a general understanding of the forest- 

 range situation and the functioning of the 

 analytical system. These alternatives were de- 



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