THIS is my last column until I return from Montana next autumn. While there, I’ll continue working on the three E’s of environmental policy: ecology, economics and ethics. Only systems that link freedom to act with responsibility for the results of the action work well in dealing with them. Others fail. Linking action with accountability […]

MANY people share my deep concern with improving and protecting the wildlife, watersheds, and recreation values of forests. Good policy links these goods with sound economic practices. All require landowners’ confidence in the future. The proposed export ban on raw logs from private lands subverts this confidence and undermines the management required to reach these […]

IT is easy to understand why some people find banning private log exports an attractive idea. Superficially, it appears to save jobs, reduce domestic timber prices and slow environmental degradation caused by logging. But there are good, ethical reasons why a ban makes little sense. In later columns, I will discuss the likely economic and […]