Pacific Northwest Research Station

Title: Socioeconomic change in planning provinces of the Northwest Forest Plan region.

Author: Donoghue, Ellen M.; Sutton, N. Lynnae

Date: 2006

Source: Northwest Science. 80(2): 73-85

Description: The Northwest Forest Plan's 1994 Record of Decision (ROD) established a framework for a new ecosystem approach to federal land management across 24 million acres of the Pacific Northwest. One strategy outlined in the ROD combined ecosystem management and civic involvement in the creation of planning provinces, consisting of 12 contiguous multi-ownership areas spanning the Plan region. The ROD also directed agencies to monitor the effectiveness of the Plan, including the implementation of a socioeconomic monitoring program. We defined communities within provinces in order to better understand socioeconomic change. We developed a composite measure of community socioeconomic well-being (SEWB) to compare communities within the 12 planning provinces based on their proximity to Forest Service (FS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands. Some provinces improved in SEWB over the decade and some declined, but this was not related to how much FS and BLM lands were in the province, nor how many communities in the province were close to FS and BLM lands. Communities with 5 miles of FS and BLM lands had significantly lower SEWB scores compared to communities farther away in both 1990 and 2000. Income inequality increased significantly between 1990 and 2000 for communities within 5 miles of FS and BLM lands but showed no significant change for communities farther away. As existing jurisdictions that span multiple land ownerships with mechanisms for dialogue and learning among stakeholders and decision-makers, planning provinces provide opportunities for increased understanding of the ways that forest management affects to community socioeconomic well-being. Information on socioeconomic conditions of communities in planning provinces is an important step in understanding how communities change and what factors contribute to change.

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Citation

Donoghue, Ellen M.; Sutton, N. Lynnae  2006.  Socioeconomic change in planning provinces of the Northwest Forest Plan region..   Northwest Science. 80(2): 73-85