Richard W. HaynesUSDA Forest Service

Pacific Northwest Research Station

Indicator 46—Viability and Adaptability of Forest and Range

Dependent Communities

Intent deals with the relation of forest or range management and the well-being of communities

Well-being reflects both jobs (economic well-being) and community attributes contributing to notions of community stability

Background

Developing a Measure Measures of economic dependency on natural

resources such as forests or rangeland Social well-being of communities.

Capacity of communities to deal with change Socioeconomic status of community members

Question of scale, National/Regional context set by the sustainable roundtable discussions

Evolution of terms Community stability Forest/range dependence Forest/range-based (or reliant) Community capacity Community resilience Community viability and adaptability

A Composite Measure Population density Proxy for lifestyle diversity

Minority status National Forest acres

Economic diversity Forestland acres Cattle inventory

Population and area by degree of adaptability and extent of forestland

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Population Area Population Area

Per

cent High

MediumLow

Low adaptability Medium and high adaptability

Counties with low variability and adaptability to changing economic conditions-forestland

Counties with low variability and adaptability to changing economic conditions-cattle

Future Work Need for refinement in the various proxies How do we assess range reliance Need to consider how to reframe the

science/policy discussion in terms of the actual spatial hierarchy.

Need to develop comparable community data bases for social and economic conditions.