California's forest products industry and timber harvest, 2012

McIver, Chelsea P.; Meek, Joshua P; Scudder, Micah G.; Sorenson, Colin B.; Morgan, Todd A.; Christensen, Glenn A.

doi:10.2737/pnw-gtr-908

Cited by 15 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 6 publications

(28 reference statements)

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“…But 2015-2016 expenditures remained modest in relation to other regulatory priorities. For example, the $2.7 million spent to regulate the cannabis industry in that year was about 7% of what was spent to regulate the timber industry (State of California 2015b), even though cannabis production in the Emerald Triangle alone is worth at least $5 billion annually (ERA Economics 2017) and timber production was only $1.5 billion for the whole state (Mciver et al 2012). Further, only about one-fifth of that funding went towards regulation of environmental impacts associated with cultivation and production (…”

Section: Relationship Between Cultivation Site Abandonment and Enviromentioning

confidence: 99%

The emergence of cannabis agriculture frontiers as environmental threats

Butsic

Carah

Baumann

et al. 2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

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On agricultural frontiers, minimal regulation and potential windfall profits drive opportunistic land use that often results in environmental damage. Cannabis, an increasingly decriminalized agricultural commodity in many places throughout the world, may now be creating new agricultural frontiers. We examined how cannabis frontiers have boomed in northern California, one of the United States' leading production areas. From 2012-2016 cannabis farms increased in number by 58%, cannabis plants increased by 183%, and the total area under cultivation increased by 91%. Growth in number of sites (80%), as well as in site size (56% per site) contributed to the observed expansion. Cannabis expansion took place in areas of high environmental sensitivity, including 80%-116% increases in cultivation sites near high-quality habitat for threatened and endangered salmonid fish species. Production increased by 40% on steep slopes, sites more than doubled near public lands, and increased by 44% in remote locations far from paved roads. Cannabis farm abandonment was modest, and driven primarily by farm size, not location within sensitive environments. To address policy and institutions for environmental protection, we examined state budget allocations for cannabis regulatory programs. These increased six-fold between 2012-2016 but remained very low relative to other regulatory programs. Production may expand on frontiers elsewhere in the world, and our results warn that without careful policy and institutional development these frontiers may pose environmental threats, even in locations with otherwise robust environmental laws and regulatory institutions.

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Section: Relationship Between Cultivation Site Abandonment and Enviromentioning

confidence: 99%

The emergence of cannabis agriculture frontiers as environmental threats

Butsic

Carah

Baumann

et al. 2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…(Stewart et al 2016, Spiegal et al 2016 Substantial management changes on federal lands in California occurred again in the 1990s under the Northwest Forest Plan (USDA and USDOI 1994) and the California Spotted Owl guidelines (Verner et al 1992). These policies, designed to protect desired habitats for certain species and to reduce potential risks to other resources, led to substantial decreases in timber harvesting on federal lands (Stewart et al 2016, McIver et al 2015. Grazing on federal lands also declined approximately 30% over this time period (Wiles andWarren 2016, USFS 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of land ownership, firefighting, and reserve status on fire probability in California

Starrs

Butsic

Stephens

et al. 2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

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The extent of wildfires in the western United States is increasing, but how land ownership, firefighting, and reserve status influence fire probability is unclear. California serves as a unique natural experiment to estimate the impact of these factors, as ownership is split equally between federal and non-federal landowners; there is a relatively large proportion of reserved lands where extractive uses are prohibited and fire suppression is limited; and land ownership and firefighting responsibility are purposefully not always aligned. Panel Poisson regression techniques and pre-regression matching were used to model changes in annual fire probability from 1950-2015 on reserve and non-reserve lands on federal and non-federal ownerships across four vegetation types: forests, rangelands, shrublands, and forests without commercial species. Fire probability was found to have increased over time across all 32 categories. A marginal effects analysis showed that federal ownership and firefighting was associated with increased fire probability, and that the difference in fire probability on federal versus non-federal lands is increasing over time. Ownership, firefighting, and reserve status, played roughly equal roles in determining fire probability, and were found to have much greater influence than average maximum temperature ( • C) during summer months (June, July, August), average annual precipitation (cm), and average annual topsoil moisture content by volume, demonstrating the critical role these factors play in western fire regimes and the importance of including them in future analysis focused on understanding and predicting wildfire in the Western United States.

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“…experienced in several other western States (McIver et al 2013, 2015Sorenson et al 2016). Lumber production declines continued into the first decade of the 21st century despite very strong housing and lumber markets in 2004 and 2005.…”

Section: ----------------Thousand Dollars a ----------------mentioning

confidence: 99%