Economic Aspects of Forest Management on Public Lands

Welcome to Economic Aspects of Forest Management on Public Lands

Economic Aspects of Forest Management on Public Lands (Economics for short) at the Missoula Forestry Sciences Laboratory is a client-oriented research and development group. We focus on issues having to do with forest management and decision-making, and the role that economics plays in that decision making. Local economies are affected by work the Forest Service does (or does not do). Forest Service managers need to make forest management decisions based on the best available information; this information includes the effects of proposals on local economies and the level of economic efficiency of the proposal (for internal budget considerations, among others.). Our work includes developing software, databases, and other tools for decision-making at many levels, from project-level planning to policy development. We often field requests for particular kinds of information and analysis; for example, a recent study of the relationship between expected tax revenues and Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT). Another recently developed model uses current conditions and recent data to predict the expected expenditure on fire suppression over the course of the fire season.