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Columns::September 16, 2002
Parting thoughts: Provost reflects on successes, challenges of her tenure at UGA
Southern forest products industry loses $430 million
Fiber artist’s exhibition challenges stereotypes about ‘women’s work’
Helping hands
University Council will consider domestic partners policy at first meeting
Sound science
Campus Closeup
Two curators, deputy director join Georgia Museum of Art
Newsmakers
Good vibrations
Campus News
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| The year-long project, headed at UGA by economist John Bergstrom, will identify the social, economical, ecological and ethical values of the land already under the National Wilderness Preservation System. (Photo by Peter Frey) |
The forest and the trees
UGA helps spearhead Forest Service national study to set wilderness value benchmarks
By Brad Haire
bhaire@uga.edu
The National Wilderness Preservation System holds and protects millions of acres in the United States from human development. But of what value is this wilderness, really?
UGA scientists are helping spearhead a national study to help elected officials, regulatory agencies and land policymakers answer this question.
When such natural areas as a wilderness are preserved, there is often debate on whether the preservation is worth the lost jobs and income that might come from commercial development.
“What do we get back in return for preservation?” asks John Bergstrom, an economist with the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. “What are the benefits?”
The study is a collaborative effort between UGA and the U.S. Forest Service office in Athens. It will incorporate the studies, opinions and inputs of economists, sociologists, ecologists, philosophers and preservation experts across the country. There are benefits both for developing and for not developing natural areas.
“There are tradeoffs,” says Bergstrom, who is leading UGA’s part of the project.
The study will identify the social, economical, ecological and ethical values of the land already under the NWPS. This includes 644 land units, totaling nearly 106 million acres. Georgia has 485,000 acres protected in the north, southeast and coastal parts of the state. The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge is the largest of these areas, encompassing 396,000 acres of the 438,000-acre swamp.
Trying to determine the value of land preservation is not a new idea, Bergstrom says. But this year-long project will collect all the information from the past and combine it with new studies.
The final product will be a reference book that can be used by anyone looking for the tradeoffs and values of current and future land-preservation projects.
For example, imagine a large city whose water supply begins in the small streams that flow through a natural area north of the city, an area that is increasingly being developed. The development has economic benefits for the area but will increase sediment and waste products in the water on its way to the city. City officials figure the increased cost of treating the “developed” water is around $6 billion.
Would it be better to move forward with development and spend the money for water treatment? Or would it be better to buy the land and set it aside as protected preserve? In a similar situation in 1997, New York City officials decided it made more sense to buy the land and preserve it.
“We can use this project to learn more about the economic and environmental values of natural areas in general, whether they’re wilderness areas or not,” Bergstrom says. “There’s a lot of concern about the loss of natural areas.”
With this information, he says, state and local governments can see the benefits of setting aside natural areas and better understand what is gained and lost. On the other hand, the project will tell in a more precise way how much is being lost because a preserved area is not being used for farms, mines or houses.
Congress passed the Wilderness Act in 1964. Under its terms, grazing, mining and timber cutting are restricted in public areas, as is the use of mechanized vehicles. Originally the act covered 9.1 million acres. Now, 4.4 percent of the continental United States is protected as wilderness.
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