Perceptions and reality: How National Forest System employee views correlate with frequency of unsold timber offerings

When National Forest System (NFS) tracts of timber are offered for sale and do not receive any bids from prospective buyers, mandated sales targets may be missed, additional costs can be incurred to the agency, and there is potentially lost opportunity for sustainable forest management. We validated NFS employee perceptions of unsold or “no-bid” offerings against observed no-bid sales. Using ordinary least squares, we regress three different definitions of timber sales against proximate and underlying factors influencing no-bids. We found statistical significance for some proximate factors, including small tree diameter at breast heigh, seasonal restrictions, and low volume sales. However, the sign of the coefficients for seasonal restrictions and low volume sales were not what we would have expected. Furthermore, we found statistical significance for underlying factors, including perceptions regarding market information and unplanned road costs with coefficient signs in the direction expected. Moreover, we provide some detailed suggestions for future data collection and other avenues for research. Although our data have some limitations, these findings further our understanding of public timber sales.