9320801 Proctor This project addresses the ethics of recent human-induced environmental change, considering Pacific Northwest Forests as a case study. The research focusses on the underlying ethics informing public opinions on old-growth forest management in the Pacific Northwest. Though the range of recent public attitudes and values toward old-growth forests has been fairly well documented, little detailed work has been done to explore the specific ethical presuppositions of these attitudes and values, and to derive implications regarding public support for, or criticism of, practices responsible for environmental change in Pacific Northwest forests. In this study, public attitudes regarding old-growth forest management will be viewed as surrogates for positions taken on recent and near-future environmental change in Pacific Northwest forests. These attitudes will be analyzed to determine their delineating ethical features, major forms of ethical justification, and resultant approach to moral judgment in terms of balancing ecological and socioeconomic concerns. The primary source of data for this project is the administrative record, and its accompanying database, of public comments received for a recent Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement on Pacific Northwest old-growth forest management, residing in Portland, Oregon. Individuals submitted comments which will be analyzed following a two-by-three matrix of subcategories. The matrix will be divided according to location of residence and position with respect to Option 9, the Clinton administration's preferred management alternative. Data analysis involves (a) search, sort, and simple statistical operations using all appropriate records on the existing database, and (b) more detailed content analysis using a random sample of roughly 50-100 records from each subcategory. Results will be compared across subcategories in order to draw implications regarding the relationship between major syste ms of ethics suggested in the analysis and recent and near-future human-induced environmental change involving pacific Northwest forests. Results will be disseminated through presentations and articles, and yield valuable insight into future research needed in this significant area. ***
