Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Land Management
Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Land Management (MUSY) is an approach to land management that emphasizes the simultaneous use of natural resources while ensuring their sustainability for future generations. Originating in the late 1800s, the concept gained legal recognition with the passage of the Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act in 1960, which mandated the management of national forests for a variety of purposes, including timber production, recreation, watershed protection, and wildlife habitat conservation. The philosophy of sustained yield restricts resource extraction to levels that do not exceed the natural growth or regeneration rates, promoting a balanced and long-term approach to resource management.
The integration of multiple-use principles began as a response to the unsustainable exploitation of forests and other land resources, highlighting the need for a more holistic view of land use. By understanding the interconnected roles of diverse ecosystems, MUSY seeks to address the complex demands placed on forestlands and other resources. This approach encourages collaboration among stakeholders, including resource managers, local communities, and conservationists, advocating for a conservation ethic and informed citizen participation. Ultimately, MUSY aims to create a sustainable framework that meets current needs while preserving the ecological integrity of land resources for future generations.
Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Land Management
Categories: Agriculture; economic botany and plant uses; environmental issues; forests and forestry
The multiple-use approach is a management practice that is teamed with the concept of sustained yield. Multiple use began as a working policy, generally associated with forestry, and was enacted as law in 1960. As a concept of land-use management, it has most often been applied to the use of forestlands. Historically, multiple use has been linked with another concept, that of sustained yield.
Historical Background
The history of the intertwined multiple-use and sustained-yield approaches to land management in the United States dates from the late 1800’s. Prior to that time, forestlands were used for timber production, rangeland for grazing, and parklands for recreation. Little attention was given to the interrelated aspects of land use. By the late 1800’s, however, some resource managers began to see land as a resource to be managed in a more complex, integrated fashion which would lead to multiple use. This awakening grew out of the need for conservation and sustained yield, especially in the forest sector of the resource economy.
Sustained Yield
Since the earliest European settlement of North America, forest resources had been seen both as a nearly inexhaustible source of timber and as an impediment to be cleared to make way for agriculture. This policy of removal led to serious concern by the late 1800’s about the future of American forests. By 1891 power had been granted to U.S. president Benjamin Harrison to set aside protected forest areas. Both he and President Grover Cleveland took actions to establish forest reserves. To direct the management of these reserves, Gifford Pinchot was appointed chief forester. Pinchot was trained in European methods of forestry and managed resources, as noted by Stewart Udall in The Quiet Crisis (1963), “on a sustained yield basis.” The sustained-yield basis for forest management was thus established. Essentially, the sustained-yield philosophy restricts the harvesting of trees to no more than the ultimate timber growth during the same period.
Multiple Use
Properly managed, forestlands can meet needs for timber on an ongoing, renewable basis. However, land in forest cover is more than a source of timber. Watersheds in such areas can be protected from excessive runoff and sedimentation through appropriate management. Forest areas are also wildlife habitat and potential areas of outdoor recreation. The combination of forest management for renewable resource production and complex, interrelated land uses provided the basis for the development of multiple use-sustained yield as a long-term forest management strategy.
Multiple Use Joins Sustained Yield
The merging of these two concepts took shape over a period of many years, beginning in the early twentieth century. The establishment of national forests by Presidents Harrison and Cleveland provided a base for their expansion under President Theodore Roosevelt in the early 1900’s. With the active management of Pinchot and the enthusiastic support of Roosevelt, the national forests began to be managed on a long-term, multiple-use, sustained-yield basis. The desirability of this approach eventually led to its formalization by law: On June 12, 1960, Congress passed the Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act. To some, this act was the legal embodiment of practices already in force. However, the act provides a clear statement of congressional policy and relates it to the original act of 1897 that had established the national forests.
The 1960 act specifies that “the national forests are established and shall be administered for outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, and wildlife and fish purposes.” Section 2 of the act states that the “Secretary of Agriculture is authorized and directed to develop and administer the renewable resources of the national forests for multiple use and sustained yield of the several products and services obtained therefrom.” The act gives no specifics, providing a great deal of freedom in choosing ways to meet its provisions. It also refrains from providing guidelines for management. In practice, the achievement of a high level of land management under the act has called for advocating a conservation ethic, soliciting citizen participation, providing technical and financial assistance to public and private forest owners, developing international exchanges on these management principles, and extending management knowledge.
Bibliography
Cutter, Susan, Hilary Renwick, and William Renwick. Exploitation, Conservation, Preservation: A Geographical Perspective on Natural Resource Use. 3d ed. New York: J. Wiley & Sons, 1999. Integrates physical, economic, social, and political considerations of the major natural resource issues facing the world.
Hewett, Charles E., and Thomas E. Hamilton, eds. Forests in Demand: Conflicts and Solutions. Boston: Auburn House, 1982. A look at the United States’ evolving philosophy governing renewable resource use.
Lovett, Francis. National Parks: Rights and the Common Good. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998. Explores issues regarding the proper balance between individual and subgroup rights and the needs and value of the community.
Sedjo, Roger A., ed. A Vision for the U.S. Forest Service: Goals for Its Next Century. Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 2000. At the centenary of the Forest Service, ten papers cover such topics as rethinking scientific management, state trust lands, and conservation.
Udall, Stewart. The Quiet Crisis. 1963. Reprint. Salt Lake City, Utah: Gibbs Smith, 1998. Good historical material.