Speaker touts economic benefits of wilderness

Wilderness designation good for local economies according to experts

One of the West’s largest attractions is wilderness, a natural resource that beckons people to uproot from congested cities and surrounding suburbia for life near the alpine air and cold mountain streams, said Kristin Lee, project manager for ECONorthwest of Eugene.

Lee gave a presentation Tuesday night at the Douglas County Library on the economic benefits a region or county may enjoy when it is endowed with wilderness areas or public lands that offer multiple recreation opportunities and serenity.

ECONorthwest is an economic consulting firm with a focus on natural resources. Lee has been with the firm for eight years.

The presentation in the Ford Room was sponsored by Umpqua Watersheds, which later presented a slide show of scenic pictures from roadless areas in the Umpqua National Forest.

Wilderness areas provide wildlife habitat, scenery, and cold pure water, which a lot of people say lures them to the West, Lee said.

In effect, it’s the natural environment that attracts productive families, firms and investments, she added.

“One of the biggest ways natural resources contribute to economic growth is actually by attracting people, that then bring jobs and more economic opportunity,” Lee said.

In her speech, Lee cited a December 2003 letter sent to President Bush by more than 100 economists urging stronger environmental protections in the West for stronger communities.

Over time, some economists have noticed that communities once dependent on natural resources for commercial uses have shifted toward non-commercial uses, such as recreation and sightseeing, Lee said.

“The reality is that there are multiple ways that natural resources provide economic benefits,” she said.

Lee cited a 2007 study by an Oregon State University economics professor that reportedly documents higher employment-growth rates for counties with high percentages of lands managed for ecosystem diversity, compared with counties with high percentages of lands managed for commodity production.

The great outdoors attracts adventure-seekers and baby boomers with retirement money, including the businesses that cater to them, Lee said.

“They stay in places longer because they like it,” she said.

Ken Carloni, a biology teacher at Umpqua Community College, asked Lee if she had suggestions for diversifying the economies of timber-dependent counties, such as Douglas County, now dependent on a federal safety net set to eventually expire.

“We’ve all kind of sat there like a frog in boiling water instead of doing anything,” Carloni said.

Lee couldn’t offer a solution, but said an abrupt change to such economies would eventually happen.

The nearly 1-million acre Umpqua National Forest has three wilderness areas: the Boulder Creek Wilderness, the Mount Thielsen Wilderness and the Rogue-Umpqua Divide Wilderness. Designated by Congress in 1984, they make up 72,043 acres.

Wilderness advocates identify about 16 roadless areas in the Umpqua National Forest as potential wilderness areas — designation which would grant them the highest federal protection from logging, road building and mining.

Wilderness areas are also blocks of forests where mechanized activity is banned, but they are probably better known for their exclusion of fire suppression.

Umpqua Watersheds member Bob Hoehne presented a nearly 60-minute slide show on roadless areas, where wilderness designation originates. Included were photos of spotted owls, wildflowers, hidden waterfalls, steelhead pools, hundreds-year-old trees that survived recent fires and aerial views of mountain ridges standing amid untouched forests.

The Medicine Mountain roadless area, centered on Mount Bailey, is the Umpqua forest’s largest.

Hoehne focused on several other roadless areas, including the Williams Creek and Cougar Bluffs areas on the west side of the national forest.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to have a wilderness area just a half hour from Roseburg?” Hoehne said.