See this PERC essay by Alison Berry about forest management.

Federally owned forests in the United States are experiencing ecological and financial problems. Concern about the state of the nation’s public forests has inspired a search for different approaches to the management of logging and other forest-related activities. Th is search has led to Canada, where public forests are managed in ways that are strikingly different from those in the United States. In this essay, “Branching Out: Case Studies in Canadian Forest Management,” Alison Berry presents four case studies from Canada that illustrate the benefits of long-term leases and licenses (oft en called tenures) and decentralized control.

The gist of the difference between US management of public lands and Canadian management is that the Canadian national government makes no attempt to actually do the management. That makes sense since 70% of their massive forest lands are owned by the government, a legacy of colonialism when it was all the King's forest, or the Queen's, and are still often called "Crown Lands". Instead they retain title to the lands but issue long term leases to groups and individuals who then exploit the resources as they see fit within regulatory bounds, and pay multiple fees, sometimes related to resources extracted, to the government.

The national government makes a profit on these lands. By contrast, the US government has a massive work force that tries to manage their much smaller national forest, at huge expense and with increasingly unsatisfactory results.

Among the more interesting types of Canadian long term leases is the Community Forest Agreement, first introduced in 1998 in response to demand by the public for more local control. Even small rural communities can in this way determine how "their" forest is to be used. The possibility exists that they will cherish the resource and exploit it in ways that provide long term benefit, not only jobs and industry but the whole gamut of products and services, everything from harvested biologicals to ecosystem services such as water purification. One of Berry's case studies looks at an example community of only 700 people that is doing such things.

In 1999 Harrop-Procter received a Community Forest Pilot Agreement over 27,000 acres (11,000 hectares) of Crown forests. The Harrop-Procter Community Co-op was formed to take over forest operations and economic development. Every effort is made to use ecosystem-based forestry techniques and to process forest products locally. The co-op supports two businesses: Sunshine Bay Botanicals and Harrop-Procter Forest Products.

Sunshine Bay Botanicals sells dried herbs, teas, and tinctures created from forest-harvested and organically-farmed herbs.20 Harrop-Procter Forest Products sells everything from rough-cut lumber to kitchen cabinets, all marketed as “wood with a conscience.” Future efforts are aimed at creating an ecotourism business, further developing non-timber forest products, incorporating more local processing of timber, and marketing more value-added wood products. The forest has been FSC-certified, and has been re-approved for a second five-year pilot period.

The long term leases, called "tenures" are transferable. There's an approval process but one holder can sell tenure to a second party. This has profound implications for forest management since the resource value is in part a product of prior management. This is an even better example of where local management can be wise.

The year 1986 was a low point for the mountain town of Revelstoke, British Columbia. After a hundred years of reliance on timber, mining, and railways, the local economy was beginning to falter. A boom caused by the nearby development of three hydroelectric dams was coming to an end, and Revelstoke’s major sawmill shut down. As a result, most of the timber harvested from public lands in the area was sent out of town for processing, taking with it jobs and revenue.

Realizing that resource dollars were flowing out of Revelstoke, community groups worked with the city government to promote more local timber processing. In the early 1990s, the province divided and reallocated the area-based tenure surrounding Revelstoke. The southern portion went to a U.S. firm, Pope and Talbot, Ltd. When the northern portion became available, the City of Revelstoke formed a partnership with three industry representatives and purchased the tenure.

The city created the Revelstoke Community Forest Corporation, a municipally owned enterprise that oversees management of the forest. The major local sawmill reopened, and by 1993 most timber harvested from public forestlands in the area could be processed locally (RCFC 1995).

The Revelstoke Community Forest Corporation has met early goals of creating jobs, supplying logs for local processing, and boosting the local economy. RCFC has turned a pro.t ten out of the last twelve years. The losses have been attributed to the cyclical nature of the forest industry, market conditions, and environmental factors such as fires and flooding. RCFC had prepared for periods of economic downturn through a reserve fund.

There is a lot more forest and far fewer people in Canada than in the US, but the idea of local management of forest rather than national management has much to recommend it. Forests would be better managed and cease to be a drain of national funds, and so less subject to political whim.