Trends in national forest values among forestry professionals, environmentalists, and the news media

This study empirically analyzes the evolution of national forest values in recent years. Four broad categories of forest values are distinguished: economic/utilitarian, life sup-port, aesthetic, and moral/spiritual. A computerized content analysis procedure was developed to identify expressions of these four forest values related to the national forests. With this procedure, changes in the forest value systems of three groups— forestry professionals, mainstream environmentalists, and the general public—were tracked over time. Forest value systems were found to have shifted over the study pe-riod, and significant differences were found between the forest value systems of the three groups. Implications of this study for ecosystem management are discussed. Keywords content analysis, ecosystem management, forest values, generalized logit model, national forests The evolution of forest values is currently being widely discussed and debated in the forestry community. It is often claimed that a fundamental shift in forest values has taken place in recent decades. For example, historian Samuel Hays (1988) has claimed, "New values have emerged about what the forest in America is and what role it ought to play i