The recent Timber Harvest Scheduling study done on the Six Rivers National Forest contained an attempt at biological and economic analysis of the impact of timber harvest on salmon fisheries. The fundamental approach taken contained so many serious flaws as to render the results invalid. Errors were committed in each step of the analysis from hydrology to biology and population dynamics to improper economic analysis. Forest Service investigators misapplied the results of research done in Idaho to estimate the influence of sedimentation induced by timber harvest on populations of juvenile salmonids, and then improperly assumed a linear and proportional relationship between reduced juvenile population and reduced recruitment of adult salmon in the current and cycle years. The nature of the multi-habitat, multi-stage lift cycle complexities connecting spawning and rearing to ultimate adult recruitment must be incorporated properly into the analysis of the effects of timber harvest. Forest Service analysts attempted cardinal value estimates of salmon attributable to the National Forest which appear to contain systematic upward bias. Use of these values in comparison with timber values implies a mutually exclusive trade-off between timber harvest and salmon which time-series analysis does not support. Use of average values for estimation of losses of salmon resulting from effects of timber harvest is inappropriate. Demand-curve parameters should be estimated and employed to estimate marginal value changes, if any exist. Forest Service analysts misapplied the results of the Washington State study of recreational fishery values published by Mathews and Brown in 1970. The result is upward bias in recreational fishery values attributable to National Forests. The biological data base is inadequate to permit reliable estimates of the trade-off, if any, between timber harvest and salmon fishery values. Correction of these deficiencies requires a major effort at fish population monitoring over time. Correction of the economic analytical framework used for analysis also requires a substantial research effort in order to put salmon valuation on a basis comparable to that of timber resources.
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