HOW THE FOREST INDUSTRY CHANGED THE BITTERROOT VALLEY: The Impact of Timber Harvest Declines on the Ravalli County Economy.

• Author: Barkey, Patrick

What would the economy of Ravalli County, Montana, look like today if harvests of timber from its federally owned lands had remained at levels experienced 30 years ago? In one sense, it is a moot question. Timber harvests declined, mills in the region closed and the economy grew in a different direction--changing the past is not a feasible policy option.

Yet history can teach us how past events and policy decisions have affected current economic performance, which can help inform decisions that will affect the future. It is in this spirit that researchers at the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana examined the question of "what if." They prepared a picture of economic activity in the local economy as it might have looked if past land management decisions would have been different.

The project took into account the profound changes in sawmill and other wood processing technologies that have changed the scale and labor needed at facilities today. It also employed the judgment of BBER forest products researchers to make reasonable projections as to what mill capacity could have been sustained in the county if timber harvest volumes from adjacent federal lands been maintained.

The results of the analysis suggest that in the absence of the timber harvest declines, which began in the early 1990s, the Ravalli County economy would have significantly more jobs, income and population than exist today.

Timber Harvests and the Wood Products Industry in Ravalli County

As in many western communities with a timber heritage, the forest industry in southwestern Montana has undergone dramatic changes. Just 17 primary wood products facilities remained operating in Ravalli County in 2014 (Hayes and Morgan 2017), with a majority of that capacity in the log home sector. By contrast, in 1988 the county's 29 active facilities had a capacity of 91 million board feet (MMBF)-seven times larger than today.

The dramatic decline in timber capacity was driven by declines of similar magnitude in timber harvests (Figure l). In the late 1980s, the total timber harvest in Ravalli County averaged just over 34 MMBF per year. In the five most recent years with available data (2012-16), average annual harvests were under 10 MMBF.

With approximately 88 percent of the total forestland in Ravalli County under National Forest System (NFS) management, the policies and decisions affecting the Bitterroot National Forest (BNF) timber harvests have been...