Tree­hug­ger points out this odd coin­ci­dence:

the US For­est Ser­vice reports that it has re-esti­mat­ed the macro-eco­nom­ic val­ue of recre­ation in Fed­er­al­ly man­aged forests, and found that it is worth a full order of mag­ni­tude less to the nation’s econ­o­my than was thought just a few years ago?

Today’s Wash­ing­ton Post cov­ered the sto­ry. Open­ing lines: “For­est Ser­vice offi­cials have scaled back their assess­ment of how much recre­ation on nation­al for­est land con­tributes to the Amer­i­can econ­o­my, con­clud­ing that these activ­i­ties gen­er­ate just a tenth of what the Clin­ton admin­is­tra­tion esti­mat­ed”. Inter­est­ing­ly, an ear­li­er, sep­a­rate Fed­er­al agency study doc­u­ment­ed that the eco­nom­ic val­ue asso­ci­at­ed with recre­ation in such forests increased by over 30% from 1996 to 2001.

Since these val­u­a­tions play into cost-ben­e­fit analy­ses and man­age­ment deci­sions, cut­ting the val­ue of recre­ation to 10% will shift the bal­ance away from long-term preser­va­tion of wilder­ness and toward short-term extraction.

How you val­ue recre­ation is tricky. Sur­veys tell us some things, and peo­ple’s expen­di­tures on their hob­bies are infor­ma­tive, but in the end, recre­ation is what we do to get away from wor­ry­ing about mon­ey and cost. It’s the sponge that soaks up your dis­pos­able income. It’s worth what­ev­er we have to spare, and what­ev­er our grand­chil­dren will have to spare. I don’t know how to esti­mate it, and it sounds like the For­est Ser­vice does­n’t either.

As always, putting the Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture in charge of areas with com­pet­ing recre­ation­al and sil­vi­cul­tur­al uses is a ques­tion­able decision.