IIMTRODUCTIOIM 



The forests of the Mountain States show a wide range of productivity. Ahnost 10 

 million acres have the capacity, if managed well, to grow more than 400 board feet per 

 acre annually, thus ranking among the more productive timberlands in the Nation. Ev- 

 erything else being equal, these areas offer the best opportunity for profitable investment 

 in timber growing. 



At the other end of the scale, several millions of acres show much lower productivity. 

 No prudent individual would be interested in such forests solely as timber investments. 

 However, that point is academic because most of those lands are publicly owned. As the 

 residual legatee of the land management responsibility, the public lacks any significant op- 

 portunity to divest itself of such lands. The issue instead is how to manage them. 



Stumpage revenue is not the sole consideration or even the overriding one on public 

 timberlands. Public interest involves an array of considerations, some of which are readi- 

 ly described and evaluated, some of which are not. The decision of how much to invest 

 and where to invest in timber management is not therefore a simple matter of rates of re- 

 turn on the investment but is a complex matter involving many aspects of public welfare. 

 Some of the issues involved are "sticky" indeed. Some aspects of future value cannot now 

 be estimated with confidence. The relation of timber management to other land uses is 

 broadly understood but the specifics have yet to be worked out. Yet, public land manag- 

 ing agencies — in this case the United States Forest Service — must arrange the various 

 considerations on some logical basis if they are to make completely rational decisions as 

 to what should be done and why. 



The purpose of this publication is to describe the timber resource problem and the 

 broad issues of management on the North Slope, which is a representative "low site" area 

 in the Mountain States. 



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