THE INFLUENCE OF FOREST-BASED INDUSTRIES ON RURAL COMMUNITIES (FORESTRY, NORTHEAST

This study examined the relationship between forestry, forest-based industries and the stability and quality of life in, forest dependent communities.;The first part explored the U.S. history and literature on professional forester's rhetoric regarding sustained yield and community stability. The second part was an empirical analysis of rural community specialization in forestry, agriculture, mining, and tourism, in northeastern U.S. counties using secondary data sources. Relevant work-force and structural characteristics of the forest-based industries in the U.S. were tabulated. Relevant social and economic characteristics of communities specialized in forestry were calculated and compared with those of communities specialized in agriculture, mining and tourism. Within the forestry specialized communities, the social and economic characteristics of communities highly developed in wood-processing or tourism industries were compared with those with little development.;The ideal forest community portrayed in forestry rhetoric has combined images of population and economic stability; prosperity, health and wholesome family and community life; and smallness of industrial scale and opportunities for independent entrepreneurial activity. This has paralleled the more general development of the ideal rural community type in sociology and agrarian ideology. These images have ignored the context of contemporary rural communities within a highly urbanized and industrialized, nationally organized society, and have not accurately portrayed the reality of social life in these communities.;The reality is almost the antitheses of the ideal image. Forest communities are among the least prosperous of all rural communities; standards of health and happiness tend to be lower than average; while family status is high, divorce rates are very high, housing and public services and amenities are poor; economic stability is low, with high seasonal unemployment, high rates of population turnover and poor wages and earnings. Non local forces seem to predominate over those providing an integrated and cohesive community life.