The Northwest Economic Adjustment Initiative: An Assessment

April 27, 1998

The Northwest Economic Adjustment Initiative: An Assessment

Prepared for USDA Rural Development, Washington D. C.; USDI Bureau of Land Management, Oregon State; and USDA Forest Service, State and Private Forestry, Regions 5 and 6.

Terry L. Raettig

Harriet H. Christensen

Ellen Donoghue

AUTHORS

TERRY L. RAETTIG is an economist, Social and Economic Values Program, Pacific Northwest Research Station, stationed at Olympic National Forest, 1835 Black Lake Blvd. SW Olympia, WA 98512-5623; HARRIET H. CHRISTENSEN is a research sociologist with the Social and Economic Values Program, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Forestry Sciences Laboratory, 4043 Roosevelt Way, Seattle, WA 98105-6497; ELLEN DONOGHUE is a research social scientist with the Social and Economic Values Program, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Forestry Sciences Laboratory, P.O. Box 3890, Portland OR 97208.

19 Policy Background

22 NWEAI Principles

22 NWEAI Objectives

23 NWEAI Framework

26 Service Delivery

30 Assessing Collaboration and Partnerships

34 Assessing the Procedures

44 Timber Harvest and Processing

51 Employment in the Forest Products Industry

56 Indicators of Social & Economic Well-being in the NWEAI Region

95 Studies and Reports Included in the Original Matrix

100 Additional Studies Addressing the 26 Questions

101 Process-related Questions

107 Capacity-related Questions

111 Outcome and Accomplishment Questions

123 NWEAI Outcomes

• Timber harvests in the NWEAI region decreased by almost 50 percent between 1989 and 1994. Decreases in harvest from Federal land have been even more significant with a decrease of 80 percent from 1989 levels. Total harvest in the NWEAI region now appears to be stabilizing.
• Employment in the lumber and wood products sector in the NWEAI region declined significantly as harvests were declining with the loss of approximately 14,000 jobs in the region.
• The rate of population and economic growth in the Pacific Northwest and the NWEAI region as a whole has been consistently above, and has remained above, that of the rest of the United States. Impacts of harvest decreases and resultant employment losses only become evident in the timber dependent rural counties and communities outside the Puget Sound and Portland/Willamette Valley areas. Effects must be considered at the county and community level to provide the logic for initiating the NWEAI economic and community development programs.

• Completed evaluations of specific programs that are part of the NWEAI indicate that NWEAI projects and programs have had and are continuing to have a significant impact on the economy of the rural timber dependent communities the Initiative was designed to assist. Total job impacts of the NWEAI are of the same order of magnitude as lumber and wood products industry jobs lost because of declining harvests (job impacts do not necessarily match jobs lost on either a geographical or individual basis). Assessments that have been completed of specific programs and projects indicate that the number of jobs created or retained as a result of NWEAI projects is very close to the number of job estimated to be created or retained in project planning and funding documents.
• NWEAI projects have created a renewed and expanded base of capital facilities, financial resources and community development capacity in many of the impacted counties and communities. These facilities have been funded on a scale that is important in the rural communities and offer the potential for retaining existing jobs and creating new jobs in the future.
• Those agencies and organizations offering community development technical and managerial assistance to rural communities have been strengthened. Innovative NWEAI projects have enabled these organizations to offer an enhanced level of service and new kinds of assistance to the impacted communities.
• Ecosystem investment projects have completed an array of environmentally important projects on the land and, when coupled with training assistance, have created the core of a trained workforce available to do quality ecosystem management work in the future (current and future funding realities are a limiting factor).

NWEAI Process

• Substantial evidence indicates that many of the innovative institutions and policies including the MAC and CERTs that are the cornerstone of the NWEAI have been successful. Innovative ways to deal with policy and administrative barriers and the ability to incorporate adaptive learning in an action setting have contributed to this success. Studies conducted over the course of the implementation of the Initiative show that client understanding and satisfaction with the process are improving as the collective base of knowledge about the NWEAI increases.
• The partnership between all levels of the government and non-government agencies and organizations that are the NWEAI has been a key reason for the successes of the Initiative to date. The implementation of this partnership has been evident in the development and funding of projects, the delivery of technical assistance to impacted communities, and management of projects as they have been implemented. The leveraging of specific program funds by other partners has enabled the funding and completion of projects that would otherwise have been impossible.
• The lack of a planned and supported monitoring and evaluation process in place from the the time the Initiative started has hampered the adaptive learning process. The NWEAI has been characterized by a diverse array of innovative administrative, institutional, and policy innovations but much of the potential value for future efforts elsewhere has been compromised by the absence of comprehensive evaluation and Initiative-wide accounting. The perception among partners that resources for evaluation can only come at the expense of Federal program funds for communities and projects is a continuing problem that has not been resolved.