IIMTRODUCTION 



Since the introduction of "conservation" 

 as a resource management slogan, few ex- 

 pressions concerning resources have awak- 

 ened such interest as "multiple use." And 

 few have raised more questions. Perhaps 

 because of the complexity of multiple use 

 management in action, research has not yet 

 come to grips with some of the vital aspects 

 of the public land manager's problem. 



The purposes of this paper are: first, 

 to clarify the purpose of multiple use man- 

 agement; second, to discuss approaches to 

 multiple use analysis; and finally, to illus- 

 trate the need for area-oriented multiple use 

 analysis and to suggest the issues that need 

 to be considered. 



Meaning and Objective of Multiple Use 



The term "multiple use" may be applied 

 either to areas of land or to particular re- 

 sources. When applied to land areas, it re- 

 fers to varied uses; that is, the production 

 and management of various resources or re- 

 source combinations on a given land unit 

 (left-hand side of figure 1). The relation of 

 the several resources in the area to one 

 another may be competitive or complement- 

 ary. 



When applied to individual resources, 

 "multiple use" refers to utilization of a par- 

 ticular resource for various purposes. For 

 example, water may be used for irrigation, 

 municipal and industrial water supply, rec- 

 reation of various types, and other varied 

 functions. Here again, uses may be com- 

 petitive or complementary. Timber, in the 

 same sense, may be used for lumber, pulp- 

 wood, Christmas trees, or scenery. Forage 

 may be used as feed for cattle or for wild- 

 life, for scenery, watershed stabilization, 

 and so forth. Multiple use land manage- 

 ment actually involves both multiple use of 



individual resources and of land areas. De- 

 mands on particular resources for specific 

 uses, in turn, place demands on land areas 

 where resources are produced. 



The object of multiple use management 

 is very simple. It is to manage the resource 

 complex for the most beneficial combination 

 of both present and future uses. The idea of 

 deriving maximum benefit from a given re- 

 source base is not new, but it becomes more 

 important as competition increases for limit- 

 ed and interrelated resources. It was not 

 until 1960 that Congress enacted legislation 

 to establish "multiple use" as policy on any 

 of the public lands. For the National For- 

 ests, the policy was laid down by Public 

 Law 86-517 of June 12, 1960. The law states 

 in part: 



The Secretary of Agriculture is authorized 

 and directed to develop and administer 

 the renewable surface resources of the 

 national forests for multiple use and sus- 

 tained yield of the several products and 

 services obtained therefrom. 



The principle of sustained yield is corol- 

 lary to multiple use. It is, in fact, implied 

 in the definition of multiple use given in 

 Public Law 88-607 of September 19, 1964, 

 outlining authority for multiple use manage- 

 ment of land in the custody of the Bureau of 

 Land Management. This law indicates that: 



"Multiple use" means the management of 

 the various surface and subsurface re- 

 sources so that they are utilized in the 

 combination that will best meet the pres- 

 ent and future needs of the American 

 people .... 



While the doctrine of multiple use is 

 widely accepted, there is still some misun- 

 derstanding of how it should be accomplish- 

 ed. The multiple use concept does not demand 

 that every acre in question be utilized for 



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