Environmental Amenities and Regional Economic Development by Cherry Todd L.;Rickman Dan;

Author:Cherry, Todd L.;Rickman, Dan;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Interdisciplinary Studies
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2009-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

9

Public conservation land and employment growth in the Northern Forest region

David J.Lewis, Gary L.Hunt, and Andrew J.Plantinga

I Introduction

Stretching from northern Minnesota to Maine, the Northern Forest is one of the largest forested regions in the United States. The Northern Forest occupies a broad transition zone between temperate and boreal forests that supports a diverse array of animal and plant life. Most of the land in the region is used to grow timber for wood products production, the dominant manufacturing industry. In contrast to the western United States where a large share of the forestland base is owned by the federal government, most of the land in the Northern Forest region (78 percent) is privately owned. Although the Northern Forest region is sparsely populated, with only about 1 percent of the U.S. population living in the region, it is easily accessed from major metropolitan areas to the south. Almost 40 percent of the U.S. population lives in a Northern Forest state or a state bordering a Northern Forest state.

The Northern Forest region is a valuable source of recreational opportunities for local residents and the millions of people who live in nearby urban areas. For example, Acadia National Park in Maine has one of the highest visitation rates in the National Park System. Moreover, there are a number of important wilderness areas within the region (e.g., the Adironack Forest Preserve in New York, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota). Nevertheless, given that commercial timber production is the predominant use of the land, there are many who argue that non-market goods such as recreation and wildlife habitat are underprovided. A proposed solution to this problem is to increase the amount of public conservation land in the region. Environmental groups are promoting the creation of a national park in northern Maine and biodiversity reserve systems in New England and the Lake States region (Kennedy and Sant 2000). In recent years, voters in Maine and Michigan approved ballot initiatives providing funding for the acquisition of conservation lands and the federal government has funded land purchases in the region through the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

As with many environmental issues, debates about increasing public conservation lands in the Northern Forest region frequently center on a perceived tradeoff between jobs and the environment (Dobbs and Ober, 1995). Opponents of more public conservation lands argue that reduction in the land available for timber production will adversely impact local economies, particularly employment in wood products manufacturing. Proponents of conservation lands emphasize the benefits from increased public access to recreational resources and the provision of public goods associated with wilderness preservation. Not surprisingly, support for land conservation efforts tends to be strongest in urban centers and opposition is mostly from rural residents from within the region (Dobbs and Ober 1995).

The objective of this chapter is to analyze the impact of public conservation lands on employment growth rates in the Northern Forest region. Following Greenwood and Hunt (1984) and Greenwood et al. (1986), we estimate a model of simultaneous employment and net migration growth with county data for the period 1990 to 1997.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.