WHEN considering the proposed "Ancient Forest Summit" or "Timber Summit" (word choice is significant), we should carefully segregate our hopes from our expectations. Yet I'm hopeful that the summit will increase understanding and improve policy. Here's why.

Twenty years ago my colleagues and I at Montana State University advocated market incentives and property rights as environmental tools. Few considered this a viable option. Environmentalists and journalists considered us "the wild bunch of Montana." We were the academic analogs of gunslingers and cowboys.

But today this emphasis on incentives is becoming mainstream. Many environmental leaders who once considered pollution sin against nature (and as such immune from economic analysis) now favor market incentives to control it. However, the concept of private property rights has not gained this acceptance. In fact, property rights are under siege. The April summit could be decisive in this struggle of ideas.

Environmental regulations, including the Endangered Species Act, often threaten property rights. They constrain land-use options, reducing income and land value. Few owners are indifferent to this outcome - especially when they are not compensated for their lost opportunities. Here in the Northwest with our high timber values and spotted owl controversies, the situation is especially dramatic.

The problem with the spotted owl is primarily one of scale. It is not just a golf course or a shopping mall that is being challenged by an endangered species. If we were to protect the 900 or so owl circles in Washington, 1.5 million acres of land would be restricted from logging. Clearly, owl circles dramatically threaten the property rights of many landowners. This impact is significant. As an estimate, enough lumber to build 3.5 million homes would be withheld.

America's founders understood the importance of secure property rights. They saw how people in other times and other lands used the government to transfer wealth. To help preclude this they gave us the Fifth Amendment's clause, ". . . nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation . . ." They designed our laws and regulations to encourage productive, rather than predatory, activities.

Environmentalists sometimes favor regulations that strip value from property. Taking seems cheaper than buying. It isn't. Actions have unintended consequences. When property rights are threatened, behavior changes. People lose incentives to be good stewards of their land. They have incentives to "cut out and get out." This process is evident on the timber lands of Western Washington, Oregon and California; people fearing land-use regulations understandably act before they lose opportunities to do so.

Friends often tell me, "We can't afford to pay for the environments we must save." But if voters lack the taste and understanding to pass bonds to buy lands for environmental preservation, are we to impose our tastes and "take" land by regulation? Ethically, can we impose our values upon others, even for a "good" cause? When should individual choice and freedom be sacrificed to environmental ends? The answers are seldom obvious.

Some who testify at the summit are likely to justify uncompensated takings with environmental appeals. Before accepting such views, I suggest we consider ecologist Garrett Hardin's question: "And then what?" Much of what follows from threats of takings can be anticipated - e.g., cutting timber before it's "taken" by regulation. The "Shoot, shovel, and shut-up" approach to endangered species is another reaction to these threats of takings.

I hope the summit will explain how we can move toward a harmony of environmental protection and private property rights. Secure property rights are essential to liberty, they foster prosperity, and promote environmental health. These values are interdependent.

Rather than increase the threat of regulation, environmentalists at the summit should help private landowners realize the ecological values of their lands. Conservation easements, endowment funds for endangered species, and recreation user fees are all based upon property rights. We have a host of mechanisms that allow and encourage individuals to express their environmental concern with economic means. The summit can identify, publicize and promote them.

I suggest that while our hopes for the summit are bountiful, our expectations should be spare. Political management has been with us for many years and people are accustomed to it. In the late 1800's, the Progressive Era reformers identified serious problems with America's environment. Unfortunately, their diagnosis of causes was flawed. Their reforms promoted bureaucratic, command-and-control resource management. The results were often disastrous.

Nearly a century later a new group of "progressives" is again addressing these problems. We can expect better solutions only if President Clinton and others understand the possibilities and the limits of both property rights and bureaucratic approaches. As we await the summit, please keep your hopes and expectations in separate baskets.