"that unquantified environmental amenities 

 and values may be given appropriate consider- 

 ation in decisionmaking." Noting the weak- 

 ness of the model, however, does not lessen 

 the force of its implications. 



The Site Productivity Constraint 



Constraint 1 is designed to specify in the 

 decisionmaking model the statement con- 

 tained in the MU-SY Act and emphasized in 

 the NEPA that no action is to be taken if it 

 means there will be "impairment of the pro- 

 ductivity of the land." The legislative review 

 indicates that this provision occurred many 

 times in earlier laws and court decisions apart 

 from its connection with sustained yield. For 

 this reason, it was treated as a separate con- 

 straint. If this site productivity constraint 

 were taken literally, however, it would pre- 

 clude any management action; therefore it has 

 been interpreted in a "total" sense. For exam- 

 ple, the construction of a logging road neces- 

 sary to realize the value in timber (T*) might 

 very well be expected to decrease the achiev- 

 able value of soil and watershed (S*) by virtue 

 of erosion accompanying even the best- 

 designed road. 58 The road may at the same 

 time, however, increase the achievable values 

 of outdoor recreation (O*). A literal inter- 

 pretation would, therefore, preclude any man- 

 agement action since it would mean the site 

 had deterioriated with respect to the potential 

 value to be achieved in soil and watershed. 

 The legislators undoubtedly recognized, how- 

 ever, that one resource may gain at the ex- 

 pense of another in a limited area. Thus in the 

 symbolic terms of the model, (FOR- 

 EST) p+1 > (FOREST) p means that the total 

 production capability of the land in the fu- 

 ture time periods must be enhanced, or at a 

 constraining level, cannot be made less than in 

 the previous time period. 



The Sustained Yield Constraint 



Constraint 2 is designed to show the impli- 

 cation of sustained yield in the decisionmak- 

 ing process. The MU-SY Act specified that 

 " 'sustained yield of the several products and 

 services' means the achievement and mainte- 



58 Choice of this example does not imply that a 

 road may not in fact increase watershed values, or 

 leave them unaffected, under certain conditions. 



nance in perpetuity of high level annual or 

 regular periodic output of the various re- 

 sources of the National Forest " To illus- 

 trate, for outdoor recreation this suggests that 

 campgrounds should not be so heavily utilized 

 as to destroy their capacity for use in the fu- 

 ture (fig. 10). In some instances this has 

 meant closing off certain areas to public use 

 temporarily, until the resource base could be 

 restored to its former level. Here we might be 

 saying that the use or harvest of a resource 

 must be nonconsumptive. 



It could conceivably be argued that the 

 sustained yield constraint makes the site pro- 

 ductivity constraint inoperative, because in its 

 strictest sense, the sustained yield constraint 

 may not allow net reductions, in output (pro- 

 ductivity) over time. S9 The two constraints 

 must be viewed simultaneously, however. As 

 far as can be determined from the legislation, 

 the site productivity constraint seems to ap- 

 ply to potential output or use value in a long- 

 run sense, without regard to the present har- 

 vest levels. It seems to be designed to prevent 

 activities in the present that will preclude the 

 attainment of potential values in the future. 

 Sustained yield, on the other hand, seems to 

 apply to the shortrun situation, as determined 

 by specific management activities. 



The weakness of the model in this respect 

 merely reflects ambiguity in the legislation. 

 Both management and legislative efforts 

 should be made to clear up this problem. One 

 point should be emphasized. Both constraints 

 represent the current awareness that the Na- 

 tional Forests are important for values other 

 than timber. The sustained yield constraint 

 applies to all of the renewable surface re- 

 sources of the 1 forests, including watershed, 

 range, recreation, and wildlife. 60 Current prac- 



59 See Keane, Even flow - Yes or No? (1971a). 

 There is considerable debate as to the economic sense 

 (or nonsense) of the sustained yield provision in the 

 law. For a discussion of the issues see Smith, An 

 economic view suggests the concept of sustained yield 

 should have gone out with the crosscut saw (1969). 



60 The MU-SY Act fails to recognize that in order 

 to raise output from timber or recreation on virgin 

 forest, it is necessary to destroy that virgin quality. 

 Limiting sustained yield management direction to 

 "renewable" resources may lead to serious neglect of 

 certain ecological considerations. 



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