16 Time and Labor

Both time and labor are implicit costs in the consideration of the economic costs of forest protection. To be more specific, the cost of time and labor is determined according to the constantly changing situation. And they both demonstrate a large share in the cost. Therefore, they form an indispensable component for assessing the economic cost of protecting forests. Time cost, also known as historical cost, is defined as the sum of the initial cost and the historical cost change. For instance, if a family wants to estimate the financial cost of supporting an orphaned child, they need to first calculate the current tuition and living expenses of the child. Secondly, they need to calculate the total cost of the child’s schooling and living expenses in the future. The cost now plus the possible future cost is the time cost. Since the trees in a forest could be evaluated by a growth cycle, the staff assesses the cost of the trees periodically, for example, once a year. The annual increase would then be added to the initial cost, i.e., the final sum is the time cost incurred to protect the forest. On the one hand, the cost of time needed in an overall process is measured. And cost also entails the salary of staff members. On the other hand, the cost of time also includes the cost of labor in its process, the cost of construction, and the cost of equipment. In addition to the basic controllable costs, time costs also include the economic changes in the external environment, such as inflation or deflationary pressures or the cost of maintaining equipment over time.

In the book of A Guide to the Valuation of Commercial Forest Plantations, they speak that “Forest properties are typically located adjoining third or fourth class roads, many of which can have legal or practical, physically such restrictions limit access and may require additional travel distance to market. On occasion, this may involve an intermediate step to get the harvested material to a suitable location for normal road transport. This reduced price would be reflected in any forest valuation. This reduced price would be reflected in any forest valuation.”^[1] Indeed, distance and weight limit requirements have exerted pressure on the marketplace, causing more labor to be involved. Then labor costs also become an integral part of the economic costs of all forests. At the same time, there is a partial overlap between labor costs and time costs. Because when there is human labor, time consumption is unavoidable. Hence, labor costs appear when the staff spends time to remeasure the cost for the trees every year. Today there are two major programs to preserve trees in this way. The first project is planting trees because, as mentioned earlier, a large number of trees can absorb carbon dioxide and mitigate the problem of global warming. The other project is to cut down trees. Forest fires are a natural disaster that is inevitable in primary forests. It has been scientifically proven that logging the burned trees is an effective way to prevent the rekindling of fuel and the rapid arrival of the next big fire. Therefore, the state requires grants to publicly owned environmental protection agencies and privatized companies regarding trees, starting with time costs, labor costs, and equipment subsidies, and then calculating a final ideal economic cost to maximize the economic solution to conserve the forest.

In addition,  “The Forestry Schemes Manual (1b) issued by the Forest Service sets out the details for the various afforestation measures including qualifying conditions, the level of grant support and premium payments.”^[2] Under the government policies, staff will receive labor grants. Thus, the cost of labor ultimately needs to be reduced by a government grant. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics website, the median wage for foresters in 2021 is $30,550 per year, or $14.69 per hour. 13,100 people are employed in 2021, and the number of employment created by forest conservation worker is expected to decline by 3 percent from 2021 to 2031. Temporary career changes account for the primary reason for the decline in employment. It can be observed that the lame employment situation results in a shortage of job positions for forest conservator. Although the labor cost will be reduced, the time consumed will be lengthened and the use of equipment will increase. As a consequence, it will be inverted that the overall process is too slower, the time cost will rise, and the overall cost will also rise. Since the time cost and labor cost are independent of each other and affect each other, the process would eventually leads to the economic downturn.