Month: April 2010

Missoulian on Rule Roundtable

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Here is the link.  Some interesting observations.

One tension point was how to balance a national rule with local authority. For Montana Mountain Bike Alliance member Greg Beardslee, local forest officials had too much leeway to allow or prohibit activities. That meant bicyclists can find open trails in one national forest but closures on another, with no regard for economic impact or sustainable activity.

At the heart of many conversations in the roundtable talks was the need to absorb all the changes the passing years have brought. From loggers seeking different kinds of trees, to the arrival of snowmobiles and four-wheelers that can penetrate much farther into the backcountry, to new constituencies for river-running and rock-climbing and caving, the national rule has lots of stretching to do before it can reflect the world it tries to constrain.

Northern Region Forest Service staff member Leslie Vaculik added some internal concerns of the agency. For example, the old rule gives little attention to existing private inholdings within public land, or the value of Forest Service maintenance for things like watersheds that neighboring communities depend on for drinking water.

9th Circuit, Monitoring, and Viability…Again

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Given all the talk on this blog about monitoring, NFMA diversity, and viability, etc., this recent 9th Circuit Case is another must read (file here: Native ecosystems v_ Tidwell(2)

I found it particularly interesting in light of the presentations focused on wildlife and monitoring at the planning science forum.  See e.g., presentations by Sam Cushman and Kevin McKelvey.

Here is a short summary of the case.  And here is a quote from it, sure to rabble the rousers:

“We do not share our dissenting colleague’s perception that the Forest Service can meet its obligations to the environment by naming a virtually non-existent species to serve as a proxy for critical habitat in the targeted area.  Far from usurping the agency’s role, our opinion holds the agency to its statutory responsibility to fully study the effects of the planned agency action, and ‘to maintain viable populations of existing species.’  It is unfathomable how the FS could meet its responsibility to maintain existing species by selected as a proxy a species that is virtually non-existent in the targeted area.

I also find the case interesting because it shows an unwillingness of the Court to defer to the USFS on these matters, despite all the ruckus created by Lands Council v. McNair, 2008).

K.I.S.S. in Rule Form Conclusion

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In contrast to the Forest Service’s official planning rule blog, the software that supports this blog is actually useful. The WordPress search feature lets readers aggregate onto one screen blog entries that share a common word and turn that search into a URL. For example, here are the K.I.S.S. blog entries (read from bottom to top).

The K.I.S.S. rule is based on these principles:

1) Revising a forest plan is a different task than writing a new plan from scratch. Existing plan provisions are presumed valid and reviewable only when new information or changed circumstances overcome that presumption.

2) The revision includes the planned timber sale and vegetation management projects. Eliminating the two-step NEPA planning process for tree-cutting projects keeps plan revisions relevant and reduces analysis paralysis.

3) The planning rule should be flexible in those matters Congress has left to the Forest Service’s discretion. The rule should be outcome-oriented and leave the technical details for achieving the required outcomes to the agency’s expertise.

4) NFMA planning is not the end-all, be-all of Forest Service planning exercises. In NFMA Congress sought to solve logging issues. The Forest Service should resolve other issues elsewhere than in the NFMA plan.

Place-based Bills & Agreements: Defining Characteristic #2: Landscape-Scale Restoration and Its Relationship to Rural Communities

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By Martin Nie, University of Montana

(This is another post that tries to make some sense of the following place-based forest bills and agreements)

Nearly every place-based bill and initiative examined thus far focuses on the need for “landscape-scale” restoration.  From a collaboration standpoint, restoration is a common zone of agreement among several of these groups.  The scale is sometimes defined by reference to (sub)watersheds or acreage (e.g., 25,000 to 50,000 acres) for which restoration projects should be planned and implemented. 

Though the term “landscape-scale” is now fashionable, it is often used with some imprecision. (Just how, for example, does this differ from yesterday’s focus on ecosystem management?).  These cases give the term additional meaning, by occasionally making reference to other ownerships and by focusing on restoration goals that are transboundary in nature (e.g., water flow, wildlife, natural disturbances, etc.). 

The place-based bills and initiatives also adopt a more ecologically-centered definition of restoration than has sometimes been used by lawmakers and the agency in the past.  To be sure, all identify a clear need to mechanically treat some forests in order to reduce risks associated with uncharacteristic wildfire effects.  But these initiatives go beyond this limited view and focus on additional restoration needs, such as habitat improvement, water quality, management of exotics, and road decommissioning. 

Sideboards for restoration are also provided in most of these initiatives.  This most often takes the form of prohibitions on new road building and road density standards.  As discussed in an earlier post, these groups have also worked hard to identify areas in which restoration projects should be prioritized and areas that should be more or less left alone in some protected (roadless) status. 

Many of these initiatives also adopt a landscape-level view of restoration because of economics and agency budgets.  Almost all make linkages between restoration and rural economies.  They operate on the principal that  a viable wood products industry is necessary for the attainment and financing of various restoration goals.  This explains why most of them rely so heavily upon stewardship contracting authority.  Some are also premised on the economic use of restoration byproducts.  Take, for example, the interest in biomass and small wood utilization: in some cases “landscape-scale” is defined by accessibility to wood products infrastructure that is at an appropriate scale to use woody biomass. 

So What?

On a more general level, we should recognize that the term “restoration” is obviously open to multiple political interpretations.  And that is certainly one reason why it is so popular.  As a policy professor, my level of suspicion raises in proportion to the amount of agreement about something.  That skepticism is warranted in cases where the agreement centers on rather ill-defined, malleable concepts like “restoration,” “forest health,” “collaboration,” “resilience,” etc.  Like Congress, interest groups and the agency compromise and/or postpone future conflict by using vagueness—the ultimate political lubricant. 

So what I find potentially useful about all these place-based bills and agreements is how they have negotiated the term—they have moved from the abstract and malleable to the concrete and more specific.

AMA Talking Points for Planning Rule Meetings

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Here’s a link to the American Motorcyclist Association talking points for members attending meetings on the planning rule.

This, as well as other comments from recreationists raise some interesting issues:

Recreation must be included in the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) planning rule as a
substantive principle. In the previously issued Notice of Intent (NOI), recreation
appears only to be an afterthought. For millions of Americans, public land
recreation is what connects us to the land, introduces us to principles of
conservation and stewardship and teaches us to value healthy ecosystems.
Recreation also provides sustainable employment and economic growth in rural and gateway communities. The USFS planning rule must encourage land managers to plan for recreation.
2) The USFS planning rule should seek the inclusion of existing land management plans within local forest and grassland plans. Various communities have worked with local and federal administrators to develop Travel Management Plans and other management directives. Forest plans must not treat these existing collaborations as mutually exclusive from future planning.

My thoughts were that all the planning rules heretofore have considered recreation, and that no one would reopen travel management decisions, most of which are fairly recent, in a forest plan.  I wonder if these groups think differently on this or have other specific concerns?

There are other recreation planning tools (recreation facility master planning, niche determination, recreation opportunity spectrum) and I wonder if these groups are arguing for better (and/or more clear to the public) of all these different efforts?

International Connection? Hayfork and the Amazon

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In this news piece, the unintended consequences of depopulation  reminds me of Lynn Jungwirth’s powerful statement at the National Roundtable about the  impacts of the illegal use of the forest by commercial enterprises on the national forests in northern California.

“You might think that as people leave the forest there would be a conservation gain – that the abandoned land and rivers would be left to nature. However, we found that wasn’t the case. Although plants and animals were no longer being farmed and harvested by subsistence resource users, other more commercial activities moved in,” said Parry in a statement.

NCFP Blog- Help Wanted!

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John Rupe and I are very busy with our regional roundtables and the press of other business for the next two weeks.. If you have been thinking about posting a guest blog entry, we would appreciate hearing from you, especially in the next few weeks.  There are  many perspectives and interests that haven’t been represented by our regular contributors and we would love to hear from you.

Please email Martin or me with your entry and we will post.

Thanks!

Sharon

Blue Ribbon Coalition Wonders About Mix of Scientific Disciplines

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In this piece, the BRC talks about the process of rulemaking thus far:

At the same time, after attending both the National Science Forums and participating in the first National Roundtable in Washington, DC, Mumm did have concerns that some segments of science may be missing from the analysis.

“I came away from the Science Forums feeling it was top-heavy with biological/ecological science and lacking data from the social/economic science side of the issue.”

Mumm concluded,

“In the end, this Planning Rule will have a dramatic affect on a great many communities across this country and I would encourage the Forest Service to broaden the science they are looking to ‘underpin’ the making of it with. ‘Science’ is a method of inquiry-not a static body of knowledge. Human communities are an undeniable part of the natural environment and more than just narrow perspectives on ‘hard’ science need to be part of this equation.”

This piece  reminds us that individual disciplines have their own scientific procedures that they determine to be “the best science,”  and there is no scientific way of determining which disciplines to include,  nor how many, nor a metascientific discipline with agreed upon rules of inquiry.  And of course, there is scientist to scientist variation within discipline. And interpersonal dynamics in committees of scientists. It’s a bountiful, diverse and wonderful community of scientific communities out there.

Water and Watersheds- Unifying Principle for a New Planning Rule?

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Guest post by Jim Furnish, former Deputy Chief for National Forest Systems, USDA Forest Service

Why Is Water So Important?

The connection between forests and water has long been recognized, and was at the core of why national forests were created. The Organic Act of 1897 speaks to “favorable conditions of water flow” (which we would articulate differently today), and the strong inference is to both quality and quantity. Forests and their waters were under clear threats from rampant logging, grazing, and mining. Today, although such overt abuses have been stopped, the value of clean abundant water flowing from public land is greater than ever.

Watersheds behave much like a human veinous system, serving every part of the landscape and ushering water out and away through ever larger streams. Water is a direct and inerrant reflection of the health of the landscape — it cannot lie. It is the lifeblood of the landscape, thus, biota is usually bunched and concentrated in and near water. A century of conservation has no doubt served to avert degradation, yet population and commercial pressures continue to impact watershed health.

Is watershed restoration necessary? The underlying question is important — is there anything to restore, and, if yes, how/why did it get that way? On national forests, did the Forest Service play a causal role? The response to these questions draws sharp differences, often breaking along ideological lines. But what does the land say?

Invasive species, degraded fish stocks, threatened species, loss of riparian health — no matter your ideology, all these speak plainly to the reality that things are not as they should be, no matter the cause. What niche should national forests occupy as it relates to reasonable public expectations for watershed health? I would hope the Forest Service would aspire to a high calling. It should be noted that severity varies greatly, and some watersheds remain in great shape, while others are in poor health.

Today, watershed restoration must be an essential unifying principle for land managing agencies — and an important element in an effective and useful planning regulation. Water is a crucial essence for almost all land management considerations.

Trigger Itch

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As Sharon writes, I have raised the possibility of using “triggers and thresholds” in some sort of adaptive management framework:  Here is the statement I made at last week’s science forum:

 One possible approach to this problem [how to practice adaptive management in the modern regulatory state] is to consider using some type of pre-negotiated commitments in an adaptive management framework.  These enforceable commitments would specify what actions will be taken by the agency if monitoring information shows X or Y.  In other words, some predetermined decisions, or more general courses of action, are built into the adaptive framework from the beginning (i.e., if this, then what).  Not every possible scenario can be prefigured of course, but having some thresholds or trigger mechanisms built into an adaptive framework might alleviate concerns about the amount of discretion ostensibly needed by agencies to plan and manage adaptively.

In retrospect, perhaps it’s wise to stay away from the term “threshold” because of its scientific usage and debate.  But triggers should still be considered by the agency.  I think the approach might work best in particular management situations, especially those that have an implementation monitoring program in place. 

I don’t think the approach is that uncommon actually.  Consider, for example, a report written by Chuck Quimby of USFS on using adaptive management options within a NEPA process focused on grazing (sorry, don’t have a PDF or link).  He discusses how various adaptive management options can be worked into EIS alternatives. 

Or consider various state wolf management plans whereby states commit to so many packs, and if monitoring shows they drop below some predetermined floor, a different suite of managerial requirements kick-in (more conservative wolf management). 

And to show that such an approach can cut in multiple directions consider the “adaptive timber management strategy” as used by the Tongass NF.  That strategy basically sets various triggers regarding timber harvesting and industrial development in SE Alaska.  If particular objectives are met, then additional roadless areas are opened for more harvesting.  This approach, if I recall correctly, was basically used by the Tongass as a way to more strategically open roadless lands for harvesting—rather than offering multiple sales in multiple roadless areas.  (Of course, conservationists see this as a complete bastardization of the AM approach, but it does demonstrate how adaptive management needs a purpose—it’s a means to an end—and that end needs to be defined by using NEPA). 

The approach could also be used in some restoration plan.  The USFS chooses a plan alternative (using NEPA) that emphasizes restoration.  Within that alternative are embedded a number of adaptive management options.  So, for example, if various restoration objectives are met by some date, then the agency will offer additional stewardship contracts in the following locations. 

 And one more hypothetical:  The USFS chooses a travel management alternative that connects two existing routes for OHV use.  Embedded within that alternative is an adaptive management option:  if an area adjacent to the connected route becomes illegally used and degraded, the new connected route shall be discontinued and decommissioned. 

 Sharon is right, however, because there will be lots of debate about where these trigger points are set.  (This has been a big issue in oil and gas planning and impacts to Grouse in Wyoming).  I imagine in most cases they will simply be politically negotiated, and in others scientists will be given a larger role to play (if used in the wildlife context). 

Martin Nie