Principle – Yield and Quality of Forest Goods and Services are Sustainable

Criterion- Forest management is socially efficient.

Indicator – Total expenditures by individuals on activities related to non-timber use.

Box B: Definition:

Expenditures incurred by people consuming non-timber goods and services provide a partial proxy for the value of outdoor recreation. It is important to emphasize, however, that these are not direct measures of the value of non-timber use, because the true value of the experience may considerably exceed the cost.

Box D: Applicability to Different Landowners. Explain any differences:

N/A

Box E: Overlap:

CCFM: M3, 5.4.1

Notes:

The indicator is diagnostic, but could also have limited predictive capability if time series trends are examined.

Box I: Underlying Concepts:

Forests provide a number of non-timber values that are difficult to measure because of the absence of information regarding their cost and use. This general lack of information on the social benefits of non-timber values is a challenge for policy-makers, planners and foresters, who must make difficult choices regarding the mix of benefits to provide. Describing the range of non-timber benefits provided by forests is a multi-dimensional problem. For non-timber values that involve forest use, a proxy such as trends in trip-related expenditures provide a partial indication of preferences (Canadian Council of Forestry Ministers, 1997).

Box J: Relevance to Sustainable/Unsustainable Management:

See discussion above.

Box K: Measurement Methods:

The Survey of Hunting, Fishing and Nonconsumptive Wildlife Use (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1991) provides an excellent source for participation and expenditures on various forms of outdoor recreation. This survey, with several hundred thousand observations, describes participation and expenditures for each state. Unfortunately, sub-state information is not available (sample sizes were too small to report the data this way), so inferences must be made between recreation behavior within the state as a whole and the study area.

For types of outdoor recreation other than hunting, fishing and non-consumptive wildlife use (such as sightseeing, picnicking, boating, and trail use), the most promising method is to "borrow" per-day expenditure information from studies conducted in similar situations. This alternative is, of course, short of actually conducting expenditure surveys in the study area itself, but this endeavor can be extremely expensive and time consuming. "Borrowing" or "transferring" per-day expenditures from similar situations is a common procedure that seems to work reasonably well.

Box L: Data Required:

The data required, presuming that estimates of recreation use are also available, are per-day, trip-related expenditures for various recreation activities. As noted in the previous section, these data are available at the state level for hunting, fishing and non-consumptive wildlife use activities. For other outdoor recreation activities, per-day expenditures can be "transferred" from studies in similar situations, short of conducting a survey. The reliability of transferred expenditure data is generally quite high, if particular attention is paid to the similarity of the study area with the characteristics of the reference study (see, for example, Stynes and Stokowski, 1996).

Box M: Data Used for the North American Test:

The data used in the test relied heavily upon the information from the Survey of Hunting, Fishing and Nonconsumptive Wildlife Use (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1991) for the state of Idaho. These data describe the expenditures for various wildlife-related recreation activities by both residents of the state and non-resident visitors. Only the portion of total expenditures having to do with trip-related expenses were used. Expenditures within the study area (specifically the counties included in the study area) were estimated using a rather crude method: since approximately 26% of the state’s population lives within the area, it was presumed that the same percentage of expenditures occurred within the area. More sophisticated methods would surely encompass more explanatory variables.

Box N: Example Results :

Box O: Assessing the Practicality:

The indicator is generally a reasonable index of recreation-related economic activity. Since the Survey of Hunting, Fishing and Nonconsumptive Wildlife Use is conducted every five years, this excellent source of participation and expenditure data can be relied upon for repeated measurements. Unfortunately, the lack of sub-state detail requires additional methods to derive site-specific information, but reliable ways of accomplishing this can be relatively easily applied.

For activities other than those related to wildlife, the prospect is somewhat less positive. While it is possible to use the "transfer method" to apply per-day expenditure rates to local estimates of recreation use, the reliability of the results can be suspect. This is particularly true if the recreation use estimates are of unknown reliability: the lack of explicit sampling designs similar to those used in the Survey significantly reduce the confidence that can be given to these estimates.

Box P: Assessing the Information Value:

The information content of this indicator is generally high. Actual monetary expenditures on outdoor recreation are an intuitively appealing and believable measurement for many people. This indicator succinctly illustrates one relationship between the forest environment and the economic conditions of persons.

Box Q: Overall assessment:

Accepted –

Strengths:

1. It is well defined and measurable.

2. Indicates direct relationship between economic activity and forest management

Weaknesses:

1. Some data requirements are challenging and may be somewhat unreliable.

Box R: Did you rewrite or revise to a new indicator. If so what?

No.

Box S: References:

• Canadian Council of Forest Ministers; Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Headquarters, Ottawa, Ont. 1992. National Forest Strategy. Sustainable forests: A Canadian commitment.
• Stynes,D.J.,Stokowski ,P.A. 1996. Alternative research approaches for studying hard-to-define nature-based values. In: Nature and the Human Spirit. B.L.Driver,D. Dustin, T. Baltic, G. Elsner and G. Peterson (eds). State College, PA: Venture Publ.
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1991 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC.

Please record your notes on evaluating the indicator here.