Let’s Discuss: Your Priorities and Bold Innovations to Carry Out Recommendations from The Wildfire Commission Report

 

 

There is much to talk about in the Wildfire Commission Report.  Kelly Martin has offered to talk to us about it (she is a member of the Commission) via Zoom, so please let me know if you are interested.  Today, though, I had heard that Commission members were making Hill visits to highlight priority actions.  I don’t know what they came up with as priorities, so hopefully someone will let us know.  But I thought it might be fun to generate ideas here.  There is plenty of expertise among TSW readers.  The way the Report is written, it’s an emergency- so that gives us room to think outside the box.. way outside the box!

Here’s mine.

1. Workforce.  Of course, give wildland firefighters a living wage and what they are already owed.  Work on housing.  How about a CE for FS and BLM to develop sites on federal land to house workers? Perhaps for workers’ RVs or trailers, or provide those to them at reasonable cost? Maybe used FEMA trailers? Cheaper and quicker than building permanent housing, as some places are trying. What else can we do?

Perhaps synchronistically, I received in my mailbox this morning a post from a person whose pseudonym is N.S. Lyons, who writes a Substack called The Upheaval.  He was talking about the failure of security systems in Israel at the border, but I thought this might be relevant to this topic.

One of the most famous sayings of the legendary U.S. Air Force pilot and strategist Col. John Boyd, who helped develop modern maneuver warfare (and is maybe best known for inventing the “OODA Loop”) was: “People, ideas, machines – in that order!” While warfighting devices were and are important, as are doctrines, tactics, and stratagems, these are all less important than the people doing the fighting, planning, and organizing – and are far less adaptable and reliable. As Boyd would often harangue Generals in the Pentagon, usually to no avail: “Machines don’t fight wars… Humans fight wars!”

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Today we have come to practically worship technology and complexity for its own sake, believing it to be the sorcery that must be able to solve our problems once and for all. Except far too often it actually doesn’t – it just creates the illusion of having done so, while our own capacities have actually diminished and our vulnerabilities to entropy-induced system failure have increased. In this way, technology has increasingly become a false idol, squatting in the place of or even preventing genuine human ingenuity, innovation, and adaptability.

People, ideas, machines.. indeed! So let’s invest in them. First.

2. Build Trust About Use of Beneficial Fire. Having fuels experts live in their communities (see 1) will help.  I would add Congress asking the FS to stand down on plan revision until each Forest finishes (including litigation) a plan amendment that develops  1) PODs, or equivalent mapping of potential operational sites  2) conditions and places for prescribed fire and wildland fire use and 3) programs to understand and reduce human-caused ignitions.  The amendment would include an EIS for ongoing maintenance of PODs and maybe some programmatic stuff for prescribed fire and wildland fire use.  By doing this with an open, public process, communities could quickly get on board with understanding how PODs related to their own efforts and can coordinate.  Right now in many places it appears that communities are doing the “random acts of mitigation” without the kind of knowledge that fuels and fire suppression folks from the agencies have available.   My thinking is that building trust with individual humans who live in their community, and the kinds of discussions and public involvement that would come with an amendment, will build a solid relationship for working together on mitigation and beneficial fire.  If Forests just proceed with plan revisions, fire will be one of many things on a relatively small sample of forests.. is it or ain’t it an emergency?

3. Commission or Workgroup on Wood Waste Utilization.  When I read these recommendations in the Report, I thought “we’ve been working on this for forty years now.” And I know some of the folks who continue to work on it today.  We have long had grants for this kind of thing, and yet..  Ten years or so ago, I was in a meeting with DOE who wanted to try something at a gigantic scale, and The Wilderness Society who was afraid if we developed markets for small diameter woody material that they would take over politically and the environment would be sacrificed.  So all the bright young Colorado entrepreneurs at the meeting gave up.  Then there is the question of supply, that 4FRI was developed in part to deal with.  When I look around I see excellent efforts by some FS researchers, by Extension faculty at land grants, by entrepreneurs and so on, and yet…we’ve lost capacity in terms of forest economists and utilization specialists.  Weirdly we spend more money on modeling problems in the future than on solving problem right in our face (emergencies!). What’s up with that?

California had a 50-member working group on “advancing collaborative action on forest biofuels” (of course biofuels is only one use of woody waste) and produced a report in 2022, plus they have some zones of agreement with ENGO’s so perhaps some of those folks could be tapped to anchor a national Commission or Workgroup.  Whatever we have been trying has not been working, and needs organized, comprehensive and dedicated attention.  Key stakeholders are small businesses with experience in the space, technology folks, economists and utilization operations specialists, communities and ENGO’s.  If we keep doing what we always did, we’re going to get what we always got.

And finally (a girl can dream…)

4. Stick a Fork in the Current Admin’s MOG Initiative..err.. climate resilience and adaptation  initiative.  Parsing out what treatments are best to protect OG  or any forests from wildfire.. would be best developed by fire amendments to forest plans.  All hands on deck.  Focus.  This is what climate adaptation looks like.. worked out day by day with resource professionals and communities in specific places.  Many excellent folks are working on MOG who could be working on fire amendments to forest plans, collecting data, etc.  Emergency? Yes if you really want to protect OG and mature stands (at least from wildfire).

More Federal Firefighters Moving On

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/firefighters-are-leaving-us-forest-service-better-pay-benefits-rcna93689

“The situation has grown so dire that the San Bernardino National Forest in Southern California saw 42 resignations in 48 hours in May, officials said.”

 

I guess we’ll see Congress extend the extra pay, but the firefighters want other issues addressed, too.

New (revived) weapon to attack the “deep state” (aka federal employees)

Image: CrowD Games

Maybe the less that’s known about this the better, since it could be intimidating, but it’s unlikely to be used for two years any way, and even when the Republicans had the power to use it before they couldn’t, but I think it’s relevant to discussions we sometimes have about the “political” nature of federal agency decisions.  This would be that on steroids.  I’ve excerpted much of this Washington Post article:

GOP revives rule allowing lawmakers to target federal agencies, staffers

The rules package House Republicans approved late Monday (January 9) includes a provision allowing lawmakers to reduce or eliminate federal agency programs and to slash the salaries of individual federal employees.

Called the Holman Rule, the measure was proposed in 1876 but was sparingly used until it was reinstated by Republicans in 2017 and then dropped by Democrats two years later. In theory, it could apply to any federal worker or agency — but for now the move is seen as mostly symbolic, as the Democratic Senate could block Republicans from using the provision.

The rule is named for a House member who proposed it nearly 150 years ago as an exception to the general practice of keeping policy decisions separate from spending decisions

One attempt … in 2018, would have reduced to $1 the pay of a federal employee in charge of an office that had been the subject of whistleblower complaints; opponents called the move an attempt to punish without due process one individual who was involved in a wide-ranging dispute.

Even if an attempt to use the rule is ultimately blocked, though, “It’s the potential use that makes it so concerning,” said Max Stier, president and CEO of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service. “If you’re a federal employee, this now becomes a risk that you have to think ‘I may get myself in hot water or have my salary dropped to zero or my job could get axed’” when making a professional decision.

“Symbols can cause harm. We need a workforce that is committed to the public good and feels safe to make that choice. That’s what’s at risk here,” he said.

Republicans have embraced the Holman Rule as part of the party’s aggressive stance toward the federal government, including President Donald Trump’s attempts to create new job classifications that would make it easier to fire government workers and his decision to move federal agencies like the Bureau of Land Management out of D.C.

During the House floor debate, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), an ally of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), blasted federal officials as “unelected bureaucrats, the true, real swamp creatures here in D.C.,” saying they had “run roughshod over the American people without consequence.”

Democrats and union leaders, though, denounced the rule’s revival as an opening for the GOP to attack federal agencies and the people working in them for political reasons. Democrats warned that Republicans could abuse the power to lessen federal workers’ salaries or fire them outright — particularly at a time when the government is investigating former president Donald Trump.

Republican backers on Monday, though, said that reinstating the rule would provide an important check on the federal government.Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.) — a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus — said the Holman Rule would “restore the people’s House” in the face of administrative action.

“I think it’s another intimidation tool for civil servants who are simply doing their job,” said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) in an interview. “It is designed to provide a chill effect on the ability of civil servants to do their jobs and carry out enforcement regulations and compliance with the law.”

“The whole point of it is to use it recklessly. There’s no way to use it responsibly,” said the public policy director of the American Federation of Government Employees, Jacqueline Simon. “It goes around everything that protects the civil service from political corruption — not just federal employees but entire agencies.”

Scott Streater E&E News Piece on BLM Staffing and Hiring – and More Questions

Above chart given to Scott Streater of E&E News.

Folks, Scott Streater (reporter at E&E News) and I were not in collusion here..but I guess folks are naturally wondering two years into the new Administration, how has the BLM progressed in fixing what went wrong during the Trump Administration. And perhaps there were forces responsible for loss of folks (like the natural post-Covid forces or retirement of more Boomers) that didn’t have to do with Trump. The Forest Service is also down and having trouble hiring people. And according to this tweet by Kelly Lunney, Interior Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau says:

Finding qualified engineers who understand drought, water issues for Reclamation is a challenge, says Interior official @DepSecBeaudreau @EnergyDems hearing. Hopes to finish hiring 400 new staff (they are about 1/4 there) in coming year @SenMarkKelly

So, we might wonder, for BLM and FS folks, to what extent are the right kind of people not being hired due to 1) they’re not out there (universities aren’t producing them), 2) they don’t want to work for the Feds 3) they don’t want to work in the places BLM and FS (perhaps not so much BOR?) want them to (with DC being a special case of high cost of living); maybe they prefer remote work, 4) they don’t want to do the work that Feds have (field as opposed to computer), or 5) can’t make their way through the federal hiring processes? Please feel free to add your own reasons and your own experiences.

So let’s go back to Scott Streeter’s article from yesterday and see if we can pick up inklings about those questions for BLM.

can’t tell if it has a paywall, here’s the link to his story.

Note: The differences between these BLM numbers and the ones I noted in the previous post from “Best Places to Work in the Federal Government” are still puzzling.

But the bureau’s overall staffing level now stands at 12,183 authorized employees, marking a significant increase after dropping during the Trump administration below the minimum 10,000-employee threshold BLM has said it needs to oversee the 245 million acres the bureau manages, according to the table of organization chart obtained by E&E News.

BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning has said doing so is her top priority after former President Donald Trump’s Interior Department reorganized the bureau’s headquarters, prompting hundreds of staffers to leave.

Logic, here.. if they are down 3,073 positions and the Trump Admin prompted “hundreds” of staffers to leave.. it’s not really about the Trump Admin is it? I guess unless you’re DOI comms…

The vast majority of the vacant positions — 2,732 in total — are at BLM’s 12 state offices, according to the chart.

I thought this was particularly interesting..

For example, 46 percent of the 72 permanent positions within the energy, minerals and realty management department that oversees all onshore energy development, including oil, natural gas and coal, as well as renewable energy, were vacant as of Nov. 19, the chart shows.

I have a couple of hypotheses here.. perhaps the Admin’s obvious dislike of fossil fuels might lead to some kind of hostile work environment- or perhaps be just a little demoralizing? Or no one wants to go to work in a seemingly dying field? Or perhaps back to universities aren’t churning them out, or the positions require experience in the field at higher levels and that’s missing? Would be interesting to interview some of these folks (or recent retirees) and get their views.

As to headquarters employees:

“Headquarters employees are continuing to feel the strain brought on both by the continued vacancies and the overall reduction in the workforce that occurred with the move West,” Paulete said in an email. “Employees are burdened with doing multiple jobs to cover vacancies and have a workload to cover that previously had been done by multiple positions that were eliminated” during the Trump years.

She added that union representatives have reached out to BLM to work with the bureau on strategies to solve the issue, but so far she said the bureau has yet to take them up on the offer.

It sounds like there was both a reduction in number of HQ people, and the move itself. I hadn’t actually picked up on that before. Although staff reductions in one place do tend to pile up work in other areas, if the same work is done the same way. But in the case of NM there was apparently no actual reduction, and people are still overworked.

But Davidson said “the high vacancy rate” remains a top concern for BLM New Mexico staffers.

“The number of vacancies impacts workplace conditions for employees because many staff have been asked to work two or more jobs resulting in overworked and burnt out staff,” Davidson said in an email.

She also said BLM is too slow to approve employee requests to work remotely and that the “private sector” and other government agencies that “offer higher wages and remote positions” have successfully poached bureau staffers, adding to the vacancy issues.

“We hope the agency will fill more positions remotely to retain the workforce we need to serve the public,” she said.

I thought this was particularly interesting, as it brings up possible interagency federal competition with higher wages and remote positions, and the observation that people are easier to hire if they can work remotely. I’d like to know more about which series are being poached by the private sector. I’d think foresters in NM, not so much.

In addition to increased funding, BLM is also working to ease the hiring process in the name of filling vacant positions.

Stone-Manning told employees at town hall meetings at the Oregon-Washington office in August and the Colorado office in September that the bureau wants to reduce the time it takes to obtain security clearances and has already cut in half the amount of time needed for conditional preappointment screenings and the number of days needed to process temporary promotions and work details (Greenwire, Oct. 4).

She also said that BLM is conducting a workforce assessment of the bureau’s personnel structure to determine where there are gaps in expertise and specific job skills, and to identify where new positions might need to be established.

It seems to me that there might be a need for “best hiring practices” across the federal government since so many Bureaus and Agencies seem to be struggling.

And to end with a dose of humor, apparently the Hotshot Wakeup Person lost access to his Instagram account because someone reported this as “dangerous and harmful.”

Women’s Forest Congress Resolutions, And More Storytelling on TSW

A big shout-out to the folks who worked on developing the Women’s Forest Congress held in October of this year.  I’d appreciate if anyone was there and would like to report on their experiences.

The enthusiasm and energy sounds amazing.. and yet, part of me wonders why we still need to do this 50 years after women entered our professions.  According to their website:

Forests play an intrinsic role in our lives. Forest products touch us at all stages of life and are increasingly emphasized as a central tenet of a responsible, sustainable future. Forestry is essential to us all, and yet the sector has less than 20% participation by women, and even less by people of color. Whether involved through land ownership, industry, conservation, public agency, or other roles, women in the forest sector are consistently and significantly underrepresented. This discrepancy is even more significant for women of color.

Of course, it’s not just us. Take climate science,

These inequities and specific obstacles women face help explain why there are only 122 women on Reuters Hot List of the world’s 1000 top climate scientists. Among the top 100 scientific papers in the last five years, less than half were authored by women, with only 12 papers having female lead authors.

Anyway, here are their resolutions:

The Women’s Forest Congress challenges organizations in the forest and forest products sector to

  1. FOSTER workforce opportunities for all women through mentorship programs, professional development, scholarships,, with a particular focus on reaching out to those who need help or are asking for assistance in any part of their journey;
  2. BROADEN recruiting practices to include wider networks, and build a pipeline of talent by connecting with and showcasing forests and the forest and forest products sector to youth and students, creating job shadowing and internship opportunities, etc.;
  3. BUILD workplace systems that support mental health coverage, and include training and programs promoting healthy lifestyles, such as family leave, flexible work schedules, generous vacation plans, social opportunities, and holistic wellness programs;
  4. PROMOTE a variety of working environments, encourage flexibility, and ensure all work environments are fully accessible;
  5. ENABLE employees to prioritize mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health and model healthy behaviors for others;
  6. CREATE a safe, inviting, and welcoming workspace for all resulting in greater wellness, increased retention, higher productivity, improved creativity, and heart-centered decision-making;
  7. ASSESS compensation for women and promote paths to pay equity at all levels, including discrepancies in intersectional identities, communities, and demographics;
  8. INTENTIONALLY IDENTIFY and support more women and those from underrepresented groups to achieve leadership positions;
  9. INCREASE the use of storytelling in conferences, trainings, and workshops; and
  10. APPLY models and frameworks to generate and realize solutions to the greatest forest challenges that are built on women’s strengths, such as inclusive, collaborative, and multi-scale holistic thinking.

TSW tries to do many of these things within our community, (but no one gets paid, so there’s that)  but one thing that struck me was “increase the use of storytelling.”   Many of us, both contributors and commenters tell stories as a matter of course in our posts and comments, and so I’m further encouraging that.  Also starting tomorrow I’ll post some stand-alone stories and we’ll see where that goes.  If you have a story, please consider sending it in.

GAO Report on BLM Workforce – Separating the Headquarters Move From Other Trends

A GAO report was released Thursday that says..

Most BLM staff GAO spoke with said vacancies in key headquarters positions caused delays in creating or clarifying guidance or policy. Further, some said an increased reliance on details negatively affected their office’s performance—for example, because state office staff detailed to headquarters reduced capacity in state offices. Without complete and reliable data on vacancies and details across the agency, BLM officials cannot make informed decisions about filling vacancies and initiating details to help the agency achieve its mission and goals.


GAO also found that BLM does not have an agency-wide strategic workforce plan that supports its mission and programmatic goals. BLM officials told GAO their mechanism for strategic workforce planning is a 2019 memorandum, but this memorandum generally does not address the two critical needs that define strategic workforce planning: (1) aligning the human capital program with emerging mission goals and (2) developing long-term strategies for acquiring, developing, and retaining staff to achieve programmatic goals. Without a strategic workforce plan that addresses these needs, BLM lacks reasonable assurance the agency will have the workforce necessary to achieve its goals in managing millions of acres of public lands.

I wonder how many agencies have such a plan? in 2010 GAO did a study that recommended this for Interior, EPA and the FS. In 2021 testimony, Chief Christiansen said “We are stewarding the Forest Service through this change with strategic workforce planning and collaboratively managing all operations within our allocated budgets.”

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Here’s a  WaPo quote:

“In our interviews with 13 BLM staff members, almost all told us that the loss of experienced staff negatively affected their offices’ ability to conduct its duties,” the report said. “For example, one staff member said that the loss of institutional knowledge about laws and regulations meant that BLM was not able to provide knowledgeable input on proposed rules and legislation.”

I think it’s very interesting that BLM would have so much less capacity – no “knowledgeable input” or had all its “institutional knowledge”  in DC, and none elsewhere.  Maybe the exceedingly knowledgeable folks (about planning, and the legal folks) I’ve run into at BLM have been the exception, rather than the rule.

The WaPo story focuses on Blacks.  But you may notice the increases in representation of Asians, Hispanics, American Indians and Alaska Natives between 2016 and 2021. If you add the numbers, they added 167 more diverse people, and lost 26.

Among a host of troubling diversity data, Grijalva wrote in a letter obtained by The Washington Post, “one of the most alarming statistics is that there are only 312 Black/African American employees nationwide at the agency, less than 3.5 percent of the BLM workforce” of about 9,000 people.

It’s hard for me to imagine that this low number was entirely the fault of an administration with one four-year term.

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The upheaval also drained the agency of its most experienced career civil servants. The percentage of BLM staff with at least 25 years of service at Interior declined from 24 percent to 17 percent during the Trump administration.

I don’t know if the BLM is like the FS with large chunks of people hired at one time and then fewer .. this could also influence the percentages.  The whole problem of loss of experience through retirement has been identified as a serious problem by many agencies.  But I don’t think we know how much of the retirements were due to “the upheaval” without asking the retirees themselves.  Most people I know have a complex mix of reasons they choose to retire; and many don’t like R administration policies in general.  Programs like ACES for the Forest Service and NRCS, and Department of the Interior Experienced Services Program are designed to help with those transitions as older folks retire.

 

Lots of other interesting information in the report to discuss.

Civilian Climate Corps and Western Reforestation and Mitigation: Rhetoric And/or Reality

Fire crews carry a hose down a hill as the Caldor Fire burns on both sides of Highway 50 about 10 miles east of Kyburz, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021, as the fire pushes east prompting evacuation orders all the way to Echo Summit. The Caldor Fire, the nation’s top priority for firefighting resources, grew to more than 213 square miles (551 square kilometers) southwest of Lake Tahoe but containment remained at 12%, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Climate change has made the West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists. (Sara Nevis/The Sacramento Bee via AP) I used this photo because it was in the Climate Corp AP story.

 

I’d like to start a discussion on a topic I’ve been wondering about, and that Bob Zybach brought up peripherally in a previous discussion of reforestation history.

I know that there is a massive push for a Climate Corps.  It appears that they would plant trees, and do wildfire mitigation, among a host of other things.  But, as Bob pointed out, previously when the Forest Service had big reforestation programs, it went from native workers to undocumented immigrants (how much an artifact of not being desirable jobs/ FS contracting policy?).  The 80’s were really different from today, but then so were the 30s (original CCC). And working in the woods has probably not changed all that much (or has it?)

 

Then there’s the issue of our current low paid positions going unfilled AKA labor shortage.  Certainly it would be an adventure for those wanting to get away from home and not join the military. But the military has had the problem with recruits being overweight and out of shape, I wonder whether the new CCC might have the same problem?

In this AP story:

While the jobs should pay at least $15 an hour, those likely to join the climate corps “are not doing it for the compensation,″ Neguse said. “They know it’s important to connect to nature and do important work for their state and the nation.″

Details are still being worked out, but Neguse and other Democrats say the program should pay “a living wage″ while offering health care coverage and support for child care, housing, transportation and education.

 

It seems to me that those are fundamentally different conditions than during the Depression, the origin of the CCC.  Also perhaps more people then (raised on farms?) were used to hard physical labor?

Here’s what a professor at Syracuse says:

David Popp, a professor of public administration at Syracuse University, said a key distinction between the original Civilian Conservation Corps and the new climate contingent is that the U.S. economy is not in a depression — great or otherwise — as it was during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency.

While U.S. employers added just 235,000 jobs in August, the unemployment rate decreased slightly to 5.2% as the economy continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

Most of those being targeted for the new climate corps “could find employment elsewhere,″ Popp said, noting a proliferation of help-wanted signs at retail businesses across the nation.

“I don’t know that an unemployed coal worker in West Virginia is going to move to Montana to take a minimum-wage job to restore streams,″ he said.

On the other hand, some of his own students are highly motivated by the climate crisis and may want to spend a year or two on an outdoor job that helps address an existential threat to the planet, Popp said.

“Many young people are very passionate about the environment, and they may see this as an opportunity to do something about the environment and still get paid for it,″ he said.

 

A bit puzzling is what Senator Markey of Massachusetts said:

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., a prominent supporter of the climate corps, said such criticism overlooks important benefits.

The program will help communities recover from climate disasters such as Hurricane Ida and Western wildfires while creating “good-paying jobs that can turn into clean-economy careers,″

I’m not sure reforestation or cutting and burning trees have ever led to “clean-economy” careers, but I’m sure they are different kinds of jobs in other parts of the country.  Say, solar installation might have a completely different career path than tree planting. Perhaps they would go  to school afterwards (at the same schools they would otherwise attend)?  And perhaps we have a pathway that has led already to many land managers and park ranger careers-  wildland firefighting.

And also puzzling..

Rep. Joe Neguse, a Colorado Democrat who has co-sponsored a climate corps bill, said it’s important to train the next generation of U.S. land managers, park rangers and other stewards of our natural resources.

“This bold investment is a necessary response to the climate crisis and prioritizes the maintenance and upkeep of public lands,″ he said.

 

I’m not disagreeing with him, but there are places where this training occurs, or at least the training that qualifies people to do those jobs in the federal government.  We’d have to ask the folks, say at CSU (in Neguse’s district) if they have enough students in the pipeline to fill future jobs.  In our world, there has always tended to be more people than jobs.. perhaps this has changed and we need more people in the pipeline?

Like so many political ideas that sound so plausible in DC, I wonder if these concepts have been vetted by those with experience running these kinds of programs.  Or maybe a way forward would be to try it on a smaller scale in different parts of the country, doing different kinds of projects, and learn by doing. We know our wildfire folks have been having trouble with Covid in camps.. is this a good time to start camps, or wouldn’t there be camps? Then there’s the question of locational social justice (I just made up that term).. if these jobs are in underserved or poor communities, should local people have some kind of priority? Maybe those concerns are all addressed in the bill- I haven’t read it, hopefully someone out there is familiar with it.

So I’m raising the question here.. does anyone have recent experience on how this might work in practice? Do States, our laboratories of democracy, have successful examples? Do our friends who run Job Corps centers and fire camps have any relevant observations?  And, of course, the historical perspective on major reforestation efforts is always welcome.

 

Taylor on Increasing Diversity in Environmental Leadership

It occurred to me after I posted some quotes from Dr. Taylor’s work, that some of you might not be familiar with her work on diversity in environmental organizations. I was looking for sociological studies of environmental organizations for my “Finding Common Ground” paper, and found Taylor’s report “The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations” which was commissioned by a group called Environment 2.0, “watchdogs for inequality in the environmental sector.” Their website is well worth checking out as Taylor’s report.

Here are two excerpts from the study:

a. Environmental organizations are much less likely to promote ethnic minorities already working in an organization to leadership positions. b. Promotions go primarily to White females. Women of color are still on the outside looking in, along with their male counterparts. c. This results in a narrowing of the gender gap while perpetuating the already wide racial gap in the leadership of environmental organizations.

Ethnic minorities are severely underrepresented in the environmental workforce. ii. Though ethnic minorities are also underrepresented in the science and engineering (S&E) workforce nationwide, they are employed in the S&E workforce to a much greater percentage than they are in the environmental workforce. Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans comprise 29% of the S&E workforce.

Why is this of interest? Perhaps if the goal is to diversify leadership (including political) of federal agencies, it would make it more difficult to select diverse people if you look mainly in ENGOs. And the white female thing.. I did notice that in recently appointed folks in Interior, there seemed to be quite a few white females. Not that there is anything wrong with white females, of course, but our whole community (ENGOs, government agencies, industry, academia) has a long way to go toward diversity, and IMHO the Biden Administration is a good place to make some sizeable gains. In my experience, groups who face similar challenges tend to band together, so while you might hire or promote one person, you may well bring an entire network of possibilities with them.

There may well be a greater proportion of diverse folks working in natural resources than in environmental fields, possibly due to the outreach and support that has been going on, with a great many ups and downs, for at least twenty years. There may be other reasons that would be worth exploring. In my own career with the Forest Service, I worked for three high-level (SES) Black male leaders, Larry Bembry, Jim Reaves, and Brian Ferebee, and I retired about ten years ago.

Good on Secretary Vilsack or whomever picked Randy Moore! Anyway, here’s a piece Taylor wrote in 2020 for Sierra Magazine updating her 2014 study:

When I researched and wrote The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations in 2014, I found that minorities composed just 14.6 percent of the staff of environmental organizations. Most of them worked in entry-level or mid-level positions in human resources, accounting, and community organizing. Meanwhile, people of color make up 38 percent of the US population, and this will be a majority-minority country by the year 2042.

When they were asked why so few people of color worked at their organizations, environmental staff blamed limited job openings, a lack of minority applicants (and not knowing how to find and recruit them), and the absence of a diversity manager. Any existing diversity efforts had mostly benefited white women.

I was moved to write the report because of the painfully slow progress environmental organizations were making. When I talked with environmental leaders, they always asked me for proof that levels of diversity are as low as people of color allude to. The report was an attempt to provide that evidence and document the difficulties that people of color face while working at these organizations.

After the report was released, several major environmental organizations pledged to support the goals outlined in the document. Over five years later, they still have predominantly white workforces and are increasingly reluctant to collect and reveal institutional diversity data. In 2014, only 6 percent reported gender and race data. By 2018, that number had dropped to 3 percent.

Environmental justice advocates want to see more than words to heal the wounds of the past. They want to see full accountability from environmental organizations about the concrete steps they have taken and what they have accomplished in making their organizations diverse, equitable, and inclusive. The future of environmental justice is one in which people of color are recognized as equal partners in environmental affairs, and it is one in which people of color can realize the adage coined at the outset of the environmental justice movement: “We speak for ourselves.”

Sierra Nevada Logging Examples

Back in 2012, I worked my last season with the Forest Service, on the Amador Ranger District of the Eldorado National Forest. In particular, I led the crew in marking the cut trees in this overcrowded unit.

The above picture shows the partially logged unit, as well as the sizes of logs thinned.

This part of the same unit shows a finished portion, and two other log landings.

Here is a link to the larger view.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.6022239,-120.3284245,1019a,35y,90h/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

There are also other completed cutting units in the area, which I worked in. Most of those were also cut in 2018, six years after they were marked. The existing plantations were cut back in the 80’s. At least one new goshawk nest was found, and the cutting unit was dropped.

What is Beyond the “Fog of War”?

There are scary and uncertain times ahead for our forests. There is just too much “Fog of War” going on for the public to sort out and fact-check for themselves. Even the ‘fact-checkers’ should be suspect, until proven reliable and bias-free. The rise of ‘fake news’ has blurred multiple lines, and many people, even in mass media, fall for the hoaxes, satire or misinformation. (Example: An article appeared on the Grist website, showing concern about a recall of “Dog Condoms”, presenting the link to www.dogcondoms.com )