ALLOWABLE SALE QUANTITY (ASQ) OF TIMBER AS A FOCAL POINT IN NATIONAL FOREST MANAGEMENT

Various national forest stakeholders disagree as to the definition and interpretation of the term Allowable Sale Quantity (ASQ) in national forest planning and management. The ASQ has been widely interpreted as a 'target', 'goal', 'quota', or 'ceiling' by various groups and indiv iduals, both inside and outside the United States Forest Service. This paper presents two differing perspectives on ASQ, as a 'ceiling' and as a 'duty'. In the absence of clear, decisive judicial interpretation , the task of reconciling the two viewpoints has fallen on the Forest Service, as the implementing agency, and on Congress through its Fores t Service oversight and appropriation responsibilities. Congressional timber targets and forest plan ASQs are shown to be distinctly differe nt concepts, but in practice the distinction is often unclear, even am ong Forest Service field employees. While the ASQ was intended to repr esent a harvest level based on the physical, biological, and environme ntal capacity of suitable timberland, forest planners' data and models are capable of providing only an imprecise estimate of ASQ. We sugges t that the forest planning process should be flexible enough to expedi te amendment of forest plans to adjust ASQ levels, with appropriate pu blic input, to realistic and sustainable levels for land and resource management.