consistent addition to the local economy. As an example, a study by the Cooperative Extension Service at New Mexico State University, demonstrated that between 1970 and 2003 the average number of calves on forest lands was 6,233 head. During the same period, the price per calf at market averaged $530, implying that over the 33-year period livestock grazing rights contributed $3.3 million to the local economy. Another major type of resource in the forest is timber, the mighty oak, Ponderosa pine, and fir trees that cover much of the forest area. The importance of this resource has been known to generations of Natives and settlers, both Mexican and Anglo, as well as by the construction and railroad building industries that helped push Anglo society ever further west, and eventually connected the markets of the East Coast with the resources of the West. Along with grazing, logging is the oldest economic use of the forest area, and according to the NMSU study, generated an average of $11 million annually from 1970 to 1990 for the economies of the four counties in which the forest is contained. In terms of total economic impact, the massive diminution of consumptive activities on the Lincoln since 1990 has cost the region $14.7 million in potential revenues, comparable to the estimated income of 930 local residents. The third use of forest resources is tourism, or "dispersed recreation" as it is referred to by the Forest Service. Since the extension of rail lines, and later highways, into southern New Mexico in the late 19th/early 20th centuries tourism has been a consistent part of the economics of the Lincoln. In 2004, the Forest Service's National Visitor Use Monitoring Study (NVUM) showed 735,237 visitors to the forest in that year. These visitors, multiplied by the estimated cost of an 8-hr Recreational Visitor Day (RVD), calculated as $5.93 in the NMSU study, implied a direct economic impact of 4.6 million, and a total impact of $8.33 million, including direct, indirect, and induced impacts on the region. While this is a substantial impact on the region, tourism remains the least stable and consistent of the three forest uses, and the one most vulnerable to change, both from local issues, such as fire and drought, and from larger regional or national issues, such as economic instability and high seasonal gasoline prices. While the debates on forest planning and operations are often defined