Tongass National Forest

Timber Demand Analysis

The Tongass Timber Reform Act requires the Forest Service to seek to meet market demand for timber on an annual and planning cycle basis. The Forest Plan identifies how this can be done within a balance for all resource values. The Ninth Circuit Court decision claimed inadequacies in how the demand for timber was determined and how the results were used in the development of alternatives. The Pacific Northwest Research Station of the Forest Service evaluated the procedures for calculating annual demand, and conducted a new, updated analysis of demand for Tongass timber through 2025. This peer-reviewed product (Brackley et al. 2006) can be viewed along with the peer review comments on the Pacific Northwest Research Station site. Information provided on this site also includes a clarification request memo prepared by the Forest Service and a response to the clarification request from the lead author of the report.

The final version of the report was issued as General Technical Report PNW-GTR-677 and is also posted on the Pacific Northwest Research Station web site. The final version of the report differs from the draft version in two main ways: 1) the final version has been formatted with an updated Table of Contents and the tables and figures embedded in the text, and 2) there have been some revisions to the annual derived demand and harvest projection data presented in Tables 3 and 4. These revisions were incorporated into the analysis presented in the Draft EIS.

The application of the findings of the Brackley et al. study in the Draft EIS resulted in questions and requests for clarification. A broad range of these questions and concerns are addressed in a Draft Addendum to the study prepared by Brackley and Haynes. This report is presently available in draft form on the Pacific Northwest Research Station site.

Other important timber demand studies include the McDowell Group (2004) report, the McDowell Group (2006) clarification letter, the Morse (2000) report, and the Brooks and Haynes (1997) report.

Work Product(s): Work products included the peer-reviewed report, peer-reviewer comments, and other comments and responses, as well as the Draft Addendum (referenced above).

Science Consistency: The Pacific Northwest Research Station developed peer-reviewed work products in support of this work item and provided review and science consistency comments, relative to this work item, for the Draft EIS.