…Has the timber industry’s time come and gone on the North Olympic Peninsula?
A set-aside plan to take 21 percent of Olympic National Forest out of potential timber production and designate it as wilderness would simply feed into a trend away from logging and into a growing service economy that focuses more on recreation and tourism, according to a study by Headwaters Economics Associate Director Ben Alexander.…
About 1,500 acres of Olympic National Forest are commercial-thinned annually, the report said. “It is unlikely the draft wilderness proposal would affect the current timber volume coming off the forest,” it said. For its economic study, Headwaters developed an economic profile system in conjunction with the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management.…