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Tuesday, July 9, 2013

The Costs of Overregulating Forest Management

William F. Shughart

Government agencies regularly interfere with markets in numerous industries, such as finance, housing, health care, and automobiles. Sometimes, however, the negative effects of such interference are not recognized or easily understood by consumers and the general public.
Forest certification, for example, seems at first glance to be an obscure issue with little relevance to the economy. However, misguided policies for certifying timberland management as environmentally friendly threaten a major driver of economic growth in rural communities across the United States.

Forest certification is a system that helps landowners manage their timber tracts sustainably and gives them credibility in “green” markets nationwide. As the president’s just-released climate-change action plan states, one of the environmental benefits of sustainable timberland management is that it can help to ensure that our forests continue to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Product labels from three private organizations—the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), and the American Tree Farm System (ATFS)—inform consumers that they are buying a product that was procured from an environmentally responsible grower….To Read More…..

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