Safe Minimum Standard for Environmental Choices: Old-growth Forest in New South Wales

Conflicts over environmental management are due partly to differences in goals, and partly to differences in ways to characterize goals. The safe minimum standard is a criterion for environmental choice that bridges economic and environmental goals, and provides a characterization that is common to both. The safe minimum standard is a risk-averse criterion which states that society should assure the survival of an ecosystem unless the costs of doing so are unacceptably large. In this application to the debate over management of old-growth forest in New South Wales, the problems of defining "unacceptably large" and of defining ecological scenarios are explored. The local populations of Armidale and Dorrigo in northern New South were surveyed to determine acceptable levels of economic and ecological tradeoffs. A majority of those surveyed were prepared to forgo some regional income to ensure the survival of endangered species