ENVIRONMENT : Logger Foe Puts Dollar Value on Leaving Old Forests Alone

When the Cabinet-level committee nicknamed the “God Squad” convenes soon to weigh the future of the northern spotted owl and to decide whether to allow the cutting of timber in its Oregon habitat, one unconventional economic argument it must consider will come down on the side of the owl.

University of Oregon economics professor Ed Whitelaw is urging the committee to “put a value on clean air, forested mountains and pristine beaches--a value that has a dollar figure.”

The timber industry calls Whitelaw “an ideologue,” and derides his unconventional approach as “politically correct economics.”

But Whitelaw sees his proposal as a classic case of reserving resources for the use that offers the highest economic benefit.

“It’s not just tourism and recreation” that he has in mind when he argues against allowing the sale of land for timber cutting, he said in an interview. “That is a small drop in the bucket. I’m talking about a value that gives Oregon a comparative advantage, and a competitive edge as a place for new start-up business and retention of talented workers.

“I am talking of livability of urban areas, Oregon as a quality-of-life state. I’m not talking about hippies or tree-hugging yuppies but normal working folk who value having that kind of environment. If the number of states in the country with those values is diminishing . . . there is an increase in value (for states that retain them).”

Valerie Johnson, chairwoman of the Oregon Lands Coalition, a grass-roots timber industry group, calls Whitelaw’s way of thinking “lunacy and fantasy economics.”

But Whitelaw’s ideas have been seeping into high levels of government. He serves on several groups studying Oregon’s economy.

Hearings have been held here by a committee of six Cabinet members and one representative from the state of Oregon. The goal is to compile evidence before deciding this spring whether to grant the first-ever exemption to the 19-year-old Endangered Species Act. Because they will decide on an issue affecting the future of a species, they have been dubbed the God Squad, a name that has stuck.

In order to grant an exemption and allow controversial timber tract sales, the committee has to determine that there is no prudent alternative to the sales. Whitelaw argued that with the recession and the low demand for new housing, the prudent alternative is to wait. “If we are wrong, we can cut. But if we cut, there’s no going back,” he said.

Whitelaw’s ideas have the backing of Oregon’s largest environmental organizations, such as the Oregon Natural Resources Council and the Portland Audubon Society.

“We’ve been arguing this for a long time,” said Wendall Wood, conservation planner for the Resources Council. “But the issue always seems to boil down to the owl vs. jobs, instead of jobs vs. jobs. It is easier to quantify a dollar value for a log going through the mill then the value of the ancient forests to the tourist industry, our growing retirement community and the fishing industry.”

“Tourism is fine,” responded Kevin Davis, an attorney who represents Oregon’s timber-rich southern counties. “Our counties are working toward boosting it, but we’re not there yet. An exemption in the 44 timber sales at issue could employ 3,000 for a year, at better wages than a motel maid or fry cook.”

Tourism is the third-largest industry in the state, ranking behind agriculture and timber.

Most of the 44 proposed land sales, covering 4,600 acres, involve old-growth forests. These sales are on land given before the turn of the century to the Oregon & California Railroad to build a line from San Francisco to Portland. After fraudulent practices were discovered, the federal government, in 1937, turned the land parcels over to the Bureau of Land Management to manage for timber production.

While there are no spotted owls on these lands, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that they make up dispersal territory--land needed by young owls who move from one area to another in the heavily logged Coastal Range.