Socioeconomic evaluation of broad-scale land management strategies

This paper examines the socioeconomic effects of alternative management str ategies for Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands in the inter ior Columbia basin. From a broad-scale perspective, there is little impact or variation between alternatives in terms of changes in total economic act ivity or social conditions in the region. However, adopting a finer scale a nd examining affects on the counties that are likely to be most impacted by federal lands management reveals that many of these counties may be better off under one alternative in the short term, but better off under another alternative in the longer term. The agencies can reduce their short-term im pacts on federal resource-reliant counties with low socioeconomic resilienc y, by concentrating initial restoration efforts in specific areas, but the environmental justice issues associated with such a policy should also be c onsidered. Published by Elsevier Science B.V.