From Mass Media to Trusted Individuals’ Reporting: Burn Boss, ODF, Bridger

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In case you aren’t following media news, there was a recent Gallup poll on confidence in various institutions. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth in that sector.

The news media is the least trusted group among 10 U.S. civic and political institutions involved in the democratic process. The legislative branch of the federal government, consisting of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, is rated about as poorly as the media, with 34% trusting it.

In contrast, majorities of U.S. adults express at least a fair amount of trust in their local government to handle local problems (67%), their state government to address state problems (55%), and the American people as a whole when it comes to making judgments under our democratic system about the issues facing the country (54%).

But perhaps this is simply a transition, and more trustworthy sources of information will replace the media as we know it.

I see folks like The Hotshot Wakeup as a vanguard of a new and better media ecosystem.  For one thing, he knows the territory, knows the people, and has been around for awhile.  Trust is something that develops over time, when he turns out to be correct and when he acknowledges that he got it wrong.  So it makes more sense to trust humans rather than institutions.  We can trust District Ranger X and not “the Forest Service.”

So let’s look at some THW stories and how other media covered the same stories.

  1. Arrested burn boss.

MM (mainstream media) “remember Bundys” “employees will be afraid to conduct prescribed burns.”

THW “things got out of control, probably a one off.”

2.  North Carolina FEMA threats

MM repeats rumor (?) of large group,  focused on FS being called off.

THW reports in real time that FS folks were called back the next day, turned out to be one person threatening.

3. Oregon Department of Forestry

Apparently there were articles in the MSM about ODF.  Three managers called THW to share their side of the story.

They also all agreed that this was a major distraction from the real issues with ODF right now. They are coming off a record wildfire season in Oregon and have major budgetary issues. Last month, they had to ask the state for emergency funds to continue funding the agency for a total of $42 million. Their employees just finished a rammer season, and the first week back in the office, they are all being bombarded with this story instead of focusing on close out, end of season duties, and decompression.

They saw this as an opportunity for media folks on both sides of the political aisle to use this story as ammo during a very contentious election cycle, and they were not very happy about that. Quite frankly, the timing couldn’t have been worse for the agency and their employees.

And that’s it. That’s the story from three managers inside ODF who feel like the agency they love and have spent their lives working for has been dragged into the mainstream media for political gain on both sides. So much so that they reached out and asked me to tell their story.

4. Bridger Aerospace

MM- Here’s a link to the Wall Street Journal op-ed on how political forces are trying to take down a fire aviation company,

Yet the closer Mr. Sheehy came to winning the nomination, the more hostile the environment became for Bridger. Late last year the company started getting strange inquiries from lenders and regulators—leading some managers to suspect that people were lodging accusations against it in hope of triggering lenders to pull loans or provoking a public regulatory rebuke.

After Bridger weathered that storm, the assault went public. In early August, NBC and the Washington Post ran negative articles a day apart making strikingly similar suggestions of a coming Bridger financial collapse, based in part on the anything-can-happen disclaimers that public companies are required to file. NBC also quoted Marc Cohodes—a short seller who has praised Sen. Elizabeth Warren as “great” and who routinely bashes Mr. Sheehy and Donald Trump—accusing Bridger of existing “for insiders and the Park Avenue billionaires at Blackstone.”

Mr. Cohodes, who owns a Montana home, then made public a letter he’d sent demanding the federal government probe Bridger over “false statements” on a federal form, and asking Gallatin County commissioners to investigate Bridger’s use of local bonds it received. The letter was signed by seven other Montana businesspeople, most donors to Democrats and to Mr. Tester. “The bottom line is [Bridger’s] going to go broke,” Mr. Cohodes told a Montana outlet.

The negative headlines mostly failed to explain that a Bridger employee had accidentally ticked the “SDB” (socially disadvantaged business) box, instead of the “SDVOSB” (service-disabled veteran-owned business) box on a federal form that tracks demographics. Or that the Gallatin Commission issued a statement that it had received a “politically motivated” inquiry that seemed to “stem from a misunderstanding of conduit private activity bonds.

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The Tester campaign has amplified the attacks and has an ad claiming the company is “failing.” This is appalling, given the attacks are a huge hit on employees, some of whom are veterans and all of whom were issued stock. Local residents who invested in a hometown company have also been harmed.

Planes are capital-intensive and Bridger does have debt; it’s also growing and has posted record revenue and contract awards. Bridger Chairman Jeffrey Kelter says in an interview that Bridger “is a Montana company with 200 employees and a mission to protect lives and property, whose growth trajectory has been consistently great.” He points to a board of directors with heavy hitters from banking and investment, and notes this has been a “very, very good year for Bridger.” After decades in executive roles, he finds “for a small company to get this level of negative attention is unprecedented.”

Mr. Sheehy stepped away from Bridger in July to minimize any conflicts and focus on his campaign. But he’s unhappy that Bridger employees are bearing the fallout of these attacks. “Certain things should be out of bounds in politics,” he says, “A sitting senator trying to destroy a business in the state he is supposed to represent is one of them.”

THW reached out to both sides, Sheehy spoke to him and none of the many Tester offices answered his requests for comments.

I totally understand the political angle, and that Montana is important for the whole country because of the Senate and so on.  I guess political entities have bought into the idea that “the ends justify the means”. If we circle back to the media, it means that we basically can’t trust them to achieve escape velocity from any politically convenient narrative.

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As THW shows, it’s not really that difficult to listen to both sides, be even-handed and let the chips (so to speak) fall where they may. It may be a tough business model, though, as in our world there are many foundations and not-for-profits seeding MSM with stories that support their worldview.

And yet, reporters’ knowledge and experience over time can provide essential context for our understanding, plus are closer to people on the ground observing situations in real time.   Bottom line: I see a much more vibrant, diverse and trustworthy news ecosystem struggling to be born.

The Forest Service’s New Campaign: Nature Connects Us

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One of the problems with the Forest Service (and BLM) is their lack of self-aggrandizement.  For thousands of years, humility has been considered to be a virtue.  And yet, certain situations do not call for it.  For example, some of my women colleagues used to ask me to review their job applications and the convos sometimes went like this:

Sharon: didn’t you lead the team that accomplished x, y and z?

Applicant: well, yes, but the team really did it..

When folks review applications, humble applicants are at a disadvantage. If we don’t know the applicant, we don’t know the difference between understatement, overstatement and plain old making stuff up and hoping no one notices.

Writer: Forest Service, don’t you do amazing things? Tell us about them.

FS: Well, we work with Tribes, States and partners and jointly…

I’m not blaming public affairs folks here. I’m not blaming NFF.  I’m thinking it’s some sort of systemic cultural issue, and interested in others’ ideas.

The Park Service has Ken Burns documentaries, ads for corporations that invoke Parkiness, and generalized organizational hagiography.  In contrast, the Forest Service and BLM have bupkis.  Even when the Forest Service did a partnership with Subaru Forester (does anyone else remember that Lamar Beasley effort?) it didn’t work out.   I can’t remember the details but someone here does.

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Yes, the Forest Service has had a campaigns,perhaps the most notable and successful was our own Smokey Bear.  More recently we had the “It’s All Yours” campaign. According to my info, it was started by a few hardy and imaginative FS, NFF and Vail Resorts folks in 2015.  The way I heard it, one of the points was to highlight the fact to the world that they were skiing and watching skiing on, not Vail’s land, but National Forests.

The National Forest Foundation, the White River National Forest and Vail Resorts have partnered to present the “It’s All Yours” Public Service campaign during the 2015 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships (FIS 2015). Launching in February, the “It’s All Yours” campaign is aimed at building awareness about recreation opportunities on National Forests and Grasslands and encouraging responsible recreation and stewardship of National Forests.

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Launching in February, the “It’s All Yours” campaign is aimed at building awareness about recreation opportunities on National Forests and Grasslands and encouraging responsible recreation and stewardship of National Forests.

The year-long partner campaign will debut several Public Service Announcements and be bolstered by various informational resources available at www.itsallyours.us. The campaign will also unveil two unique gondola wraps or “mobile ranger stations” during the event where visitors can enjoy the ride while talking to Snow Rangers about skiing and snowboarding on national forests and how to become stewards of their forest lands. As a token of our appreciation, visitors who ride the gondola and speak with our Rangers will be given commemorative FIS 2015 Forest Service pins.

As I sit here today, I have National Grassland and National Forest “It’s All Yours” stickers on my monitor stand.  It was a popular campaign, as far as I know, and had great swag.

So the Forest Service wanted to update the campaign, due to concerns that National Forests are not really “ours” based on input from Tribes. This is absolutely true, but absolute truth is not campaign-y.  Suppose we had a Park campaign  “America’s Best Idea- Except for That ‘Taking It From the Native Americans” Thing.”

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Sidenote: it’s interesting that Larry Kurtz, Jim Petersen of Evergreen and I all agree that giving BLM and FS back to Tribes should be considered.  This was in Petersen’s NWFP post.

Suffice it to say I fervently wish the Forest Service and the BLM could manage the public’s federally-owned forests and rangelands with as much foresight and wisdom as tribes but their plans only span 10 years and both agencies are constantly embroiled in political turmoil and litigation.

More than 20 years ago I said publicly that I thought the time had come for the federal government to return all of the forest and rangeland it stole from Indians in the 1800s to their respective tribes.

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Which leads us to the new Forest Service campaign, ” Nature Connects Us.”

Development of this campaign started in fall 2021 when National Forest Foundation and the Forest Service began the process of re-envisioning and evolving the “It’s All Yours” campaign by engaging with Ascent Inclusion Consulting (a group specializing in diversity, equity and inclusion). Since the initial launch of the It’s All Yours campaign, we have learned that to truly live out our code and commitments of investing in relationships, empowering one another and learning from mistakes, we need to create and hold space for respectful, inclusive, responsive and caring conversations and relationships.

Listening sessions with tribes and underserved communities in 2021 helped our agency further understand the inequities inherent in previous conservation engagement and cultural norms that continue to affect how we design and deliver our mission.

Through discovery and learning, we developed a more equitable, relatable, humbly toned campaign that leads with inquiry and initiates conversations with viewers that will hopefully widen their shared connections to public lands and invigorate their relationships to national forests and grasslands.

Questions range from “What can you learn from nature?” to “How do you care for nature?” to “How does nature connect you to others?” All are important reflections, given our duty to “Caring for the land and serving people.”

You’ll also note the creative elements of this campaign are centered on circles—a deliberate way to illustratively show everything is connected—with special emphasis on culturally significant animals like the buffalo and eagle.”

When we know more, we do more. The initiation of this campaign is a milestone in the drumbeat of discussions surrounding inclusivity and elevating tribal voices across the nation.

There is more to do—let’s do it together! Nature connects us all. Visit www.natureconnectsus.org to learn more about the campaign.

This work starts with us, so after you visit the site, find ways to incorporate this campaign into your work, engage with your existing public and connect to new audiences.

Here’s what NFF says:

The Nature Connects Us outreach campaign was developed with the intent to awaken and strengthen all people’s connection to National Forests and Grasslands through a relatable and inspirational campaign grounded in honoring ancestral Tribal homelands through respectful and mindful visitor experiences.

Anchored in the USDA’s core values and centered on equity, this campaign was created in coordination with the National Forest Foundation and is designed to help all peoples and communities realize the physical, spiritual, mental, emotional, and economic benefits provided by the National Forest System.

The campaign includes actions that target high-impact agency systems, processes, and practices to remove systemic barriers and increase opportunities for equity in local communities.

I appreciate the need to include Tribal voices. I also appreciate that a humble approach may be culturally a Tribal value.  Still, when I was fortunate to sit in on a webinar about it, I had some concerns.  Again, folks have the best intentions, but it can translate into work for the overworked, which can create ignoring (most likely) or resentment.   To outsiders it looks like devoting scarce resources to talking and strategizing and planning. And is the campaign the right place to “target systems and processes and increase equity in local communities?”  Or should the employees who run the systems processes and practices, and work in local communities (to whom we have entrusted everything else) be able to figure that out on their own. Did Districts ask “hey we need help in increasing equity in our communities, can you give us some help?”

Anyway, here are some of my thoughts:

1. Nature Connects Us could be a campaign for EPA or USGS or NMFS or.. again, sometimes the FS is so humble, it’s invisible.

2. Investing in relationships, learning from one another, discovery and learning and initiating conversations or asking people to tell their stories…as described in the webinar sounded like another vague thing for field folks to do.  If, in fact, it weren’t seeking to address Tribal concerns, we might be more critical. But then a person could wonder “did they ask Tribes if they would prefer actions to words?” It’s not that having conversations does not have value, but what are the trade-offs? How much funding, how much time?  Is it just assigning more work to overworked field individuals?

3.  Funding  “having conversations” “holding space” and “listening to stories” generically (this is fairly generic), may not resonate with the taxpayers.  Fortunately it is a project of NFF and the FS; but perhaps the FS funded NFF?  Personally, I think more trust with communities is built by their seeing actions, and the FS saying what it is going to do and doing it, versus hosting more conversations.  Traditionally, activities are directed toward some measurable goals.  Maybe that’s passe, in today’s public administration.

4. If someone came up to me and asked me to tell my story of how I feel about nature, I would ask “why?”.  If it were an FS employee on the clock, I’d ask “in whose PD is listening to stories about Nature?”. In our webinar it was suggested that FS employees engage people in a grocery store, which sounds off the clock.  Most employees I don’t think would be too cheerful about doing something as a volunteer that upper level folks want them to do, unless they also want to do it.  In fact,  NFFE might have something to say about pressure to volunteer. Meanwhile, the FS is asking people to do two or three jobs because they can’t hire anyone.

Again, I don’t want to be hard on these folks, who had very good intentions and want to be virtuous (humble). Tribes deserve much more than they are receiving, in my view, that would be at least co-management in most places. At the same time, actions speak louder than words. Again I don’t blame the FS, replacing doing with talking, exhorting, and judging seems to be part of the current Zeitgeist.

While humility is a great personal virtue, I’m not sure that choosing to be an organizational minnow in a pool of sharks is an effective long-term strategy.  I also see growing layers of ideas, plans and strategies that may seen unnecessary (like the NOGA) and place more burdens on the field-level people doing the work that communities and visitors call for and see, and that Congress funded.

Given all that,  I do like the T-shirts with the bison and National Forests and Grasslands.

Andy Explains Forest Bonds For You

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I don’t have a brain that works all that well with financial instruments, so I asked our resident forest economist, Andy Stahl, to explain how they work.

For example, here is the story I reached out to him about.

“Blue Forest, a non-profit conservation finance organization working in collaboration with the USDA Forest Service, Washington State Department of Natural Resources (Washington DNR), Chelan County, and Chelan Public Utility District (Chelan PUD), proudly announces the launch of the first Forest Resilience Bond (FRB) in the Evergreen state. The Upper Wenatchee I FRB is dedicated to funding fuel reduction activities on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, alongside crucial aquatics work. The project is financed by mission-driven investors through Blue Forest’s FRB Catalyst Facility.

“Collaboration is at the heart of everything we do and instrumental to the success of our Forest Resilience Bond model,” says Kim Seipp, Blue Forest’s Managing Director of Science and Research. “That is one reason why we, along with our partners, are excited to launch the Upper Wenatchee I FRB. Through this collaborative effort, we are catalyzing the funds necessary to ensure wildfire mitigation work starts now, not in a decade. Together, we are creating a more resilient landscape and safeguarding communities.”

The FRB, co-developed by Blue Forest, the World Resources Institute, USDA Forest Service, and National Forest Foundation, is an innovative financing mechanism that taps into private capital to finance forest restoration projects on public lands to protect communities, ecosystem benefits, and rural livelihoods.

Funding contributions from the USDA Forest Service, Washington DNR, Chelan County, and Chelan PUD will accelerate the pace and scale of wildfire mitigation efforts in these high-risk areas, completing activities that would have otherwise likely faced delays of eight to 10 years.”

It seems like a terrific idea, and reflects what I heard on an NGO call a few months ago  “we can’t reach the pace and scale needed without private financing.”  Not that I agree with it, but it seems to be a popular idea. Which made me reflect on the forest road needs that Mike brought up in Creede, and maybe private financing could be used for that.  But what do the people financing get out of it?  And why don’t the private entities just give the FS the money and write it off on their taxes?

That’s when I called on Andy.  My questions are in italics.

What do the people financing the work get out of it?  And why don’t the private entities just give the FS the money and write it off on their taxes?

Andy:

What you really need is an investment broker, but, I’ll take a shot at it.

First things first, here’s a handy definition of a “bond”:

Bond financing is a type of long-term borrowing that state and local governments frequently use to raise money, primarily for long-lived infrastructure assets. They obtain this money by selling bonds to investors. In exchange, they promise to repay this money, with interest, according to specified schedules. The interest the state has to pay investors on the bonds it issues for public infrastructure is exempt from their federal and state income taxes, which makes the state’s interest cost on the bonds less than it otherwise would be.

Step 1: An “investor” enters into a contract, e.g., a promissory note, with Blue Forest. Under the contract’s terms, the investor gives Blue Forest a lump sum (let’s say $10 million), which Blue Forest agrees to pay back to the investor over a longish period of time, say 10 or 20 years, at an interest rate sufficiently favorable to entice the investor, say 5-10% annually. I suspect the investor has little control over how the money is spent, although Blue Forest uses lots of cool buzz words to get the investor interested. What the investor really cares about is Blue Forest’s liquidity cash flow, i.e., will Blue Forest make its payments, and is the interest rate competitive with what the investor could make elsewhere, taking into account risk. That is, the higher the risk Blue Forest reneges on the deal, the higher the interest rate Blue Forest is going to have to pay to attract investors. I think (but am not sure) that Blue Forest persuaded the California legislature to allow Blue Forest to issue forest bonds with the investor’s interest earnings exempt from state tax, just like a California municipal bond issued by a city.

Step 2: Blue Forest then enters into contracts with “beneficiaries” who agree to borrow money from the Blue Forest Fund to pay for forest restoration work that the beneficiaries would like to see happen. The key attribute required of a beneficiary is having cash-flow sufficient to pay back the Fund’s money plus interest. Blue Forest has persuaded electrical utilities (their cash flow comes from selling power to customers) and insurance companies (cash flow comes from homeowner premium payments) to agree to pay back the Fund the borrowed money. The key point is that it is the beneficiary’s customers who actually pay back the money as the beneficiary passes through the bond costs to its homeowners and power buyers. Do the beneficiary’s customers (homeowners and ratepayers) even know they are borrowing these dollars? I do wonder . . .

Step 3: Blue Forest then contracts with an “implementation coordinator” to do the actual work in the forest. Note that the coordinator can also be a pass-through, e.g., NFF, which then hires the bubbas who do the actual brush removal work.

 

Check out  Blue Forest’s money flow-chart:

Clear as mud?

Sharon: This is helpful indeed. It’s an improvement for beneficiaries rather than paying the work themselves, because… ??? 

The beneficiaries DO pay for the work. They pay for it on an installment plan with interest, just like owning (sic) a house with a mortgage.

However, unlike the homeowner, who actually knows she bought her own home and thought it a good idea to do so, the beneficiaries are consumers of electricity, purchased from a monopoly utility, who probably have no idea that a portion of their monthly payment is being used to thin some forest property that may be in another county. Same for the homeowner whose insurance premiums went up because the insurance company thinks it’s a good idea to thin forests, figuring that might reduce home loss pay-outs. The homeowner likely has no idea, nor any say in the matter, of whether her dollars should be used on fuel treatments far from her house.

The only entities that are sure to benefit are the investors who earn interest for the use of their money, Blue Forest, which skims administrative expenses and can get rich as there is no meaningful oversight of its staff salaries, and the implementation coordinator who gets more overhead rake-off for passing through the dollars to Bubba. Oh, Bubba makes minimum wage (if lucky) to rake the forest.

Perhaps someone has decided that getting the work done sooner is worth the insurance companies and monopolies paying the interest? Are those analyses reviewed by regulators?

Yes, the beneficiary — insurance company, utility, city government or whoever has access to a steady cash flow from consumers/taxpayers — has decided that it’s worth borrowing money now to do the work and paying the associated interest costs. Who oversees that borrowing decision? Not the ratepayers, not the homeowners, and not the taxpayers who are footing the bill. Although insurance companies and utilities are regulated by states, I doubt that state regulators drill down deeply into these types of financing decisions.

A variation on this theme, which cuts out some of the middle players (e.g., Blue Forest), is Flagstaff’s Watershed Protection Project, which is financed by a $10 million municipal bond voted on by Flagstaff residents (74% of voters approved the bond). Flagstaff property taxes pay back the bond. The City of Flagstaff uses the money to pay Bubba to rake the forest.

Note that most (all?) of the forest raking financed by Flagstaff’s property taxpayers is national forest. Analogy . . . imagine your neighbor’s property was piled high in flammable, noxious garbage, which your neighbor refused to clean-up. In desperation, you offer to pay the clean-up costs to lessen the risks to your home. Your neighbor, quite sensibly, agrees.

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Now I don’t want to get all classist again, but in the interests of social and environmental justice, I’m wondering about another approach that would focus on paying people who work in the woods decent wages, and cutting out unnecessary layers of overhead.   Which should be just as true for externals as for the FS (which I agree could do much better and has tried intermittently).  Not to dis the people who work at these outfits, who are great, knowledgeable, and well-meaning, it’s the instrument, not the folks, I wonder about.

 

 

 

 

Is “The Forest Service” “Lost” or “Not Functional”?

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This is the second of two posts reflecting on generalized critiques of “the Forest Service.” Yes, things seem to be unusually messed up right now, but looking more broadly…

Bob said:

The Forest Service is lost and struggling. The NLT, RFs, and Rangers have developed an unhealthy contempt for the mission. I think it blossomed in the pandemic. It manifests as arrogance and a complete lack of focus on the public.

and Zeke (maybe) said:

They’ve lost their esprit de corps and sense of purpose, and their reason for being has gone away

It’s certainly true that cutting trees, in some Regions and on some Forests, led to hiring of many kinds of specialists (including me, back in the day). Funding from KV and BD led to work and experience with  burning piles and planting.  We general employees were available for wildfires, and it all worked together, as a kind of general system in some areas.  Even then, though, there were regional differences. For example, the Fremont (Region 6) had a very different approach to timber than its next-door neighbor, the Modoc, in Region 5.

On some forests, though, grazing was the big thing, and in others, recreation.  It seems to me a natural fact that what you work in seems important to you, and there’s the overall old statement “caring for the land and serving people”.   We all seemed to see it that way,  whether we worked in wildlife or reforestation or hydrology or engineering or recreation, and I assume folks still do.

Check out your neighborhood  Forest SOPA for ongoing projects to see what they are actually spending time on, along with the standard operations of recreation, road maintenance, signs, trails permits, encroachment, and so on.  Or check out the White River  SOPA or the Inyo  or the Chattahoochee-Oconee as.. there are plenty of other things going on besides vegetation management – special uses, recreation, minerals, and watershed rehab projects.  Even new (motorized!) trails as in the Lake Tahoe Basin.

Project work will include constructing three new trailheads, paved parking and restrooms at Pine Drop, Brockway Summit and Elks Point; constructing new e-bike trails, new motorcycle trails, and new non-motorized trails; designating new routes open to e-bikes and new routes open to motorcycles; upgrading road and trail crossings for aquatic organism passage; installing wayfinding and interpretive signs; developing and upgrading existing trailheads, parking areas, and access points; and updating the Motor Vehicle Use Maps.

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But behind that is both an philosophical question “what is “the Forest Service”?” as well as a social science question “what do individuals think of when you think of “the Forest Service?”.

Again, I’d like to place this discussion in context of other institutions. One that comes to mind is the Roman Catholic Church- having been an institution for 2000 years or so- through a variety of different Zeitgeists in different countries through time.   Let’s ask the same questions “What is the Catholic Church?” Is it the local parish, is it the Vatican curia, is it the people who did the Crusades, or people today or..? It’s all of those things.   If we were to ask individuals, though, it might depend on how closely they had encountered individuals.  Like, “I think the bishop is a jerk but my priest is great” or vice versa.  It’s about the people and the experiences for those closer to the action.  But there are also observations from afar.

Or try State Parks and Wildlife.  Some people look at our in Colorado as “those people – all they care about it hunting.” In my case, it’s about my local guy AB, who always answers emails and writes a column in our local paper about wildlife concerns.  I’ve had a conflicted relationship in the past with certain politicals in the organization’s previous (DOW) incarnation, but if you asked me today, my warm fuzzies about the organization are about AB and my liking of a certain wildlife area that they manage.  But I would like if State Park passes worked at wildlife areas.  So, like the Forest Service,  (and the RC church) I’ve got generic warm fuzzies but also ideas for improvement. Both things are true. It’s not a loyalty test or an us vs. them.  When people get frustrated with various aspects of the RC church, I tend to sigh and say “it’s an institution, composed of flawed people, many of whom are trying to do their best.”

We can, and should,  work on improving institutions but as long as people run them, it’s best if we don’t get too upset when they behave suboptimally.  Is the organization working? Is there a church to go to? Do I get answers to my wildlife questions? Are campgrounds and trailheads open? Does a university teach students?  It’s pretty clear where the rubber meets the road in most organizations and where the focus of energy and funding should be.

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I probably contact different Forests, Regions and the WO as much as anyone.  Shoot, Dave Mertz and I have been trying to get the info on how much funding has been obligated to the Keystone Agreements and Community Navigators.. a simple spreadsheet would do- for almost a year. FS public affairs asked me to ask the Department; the Department won’t acknowledge my requests let alone answer them.  Either to the form I submitted or directly to the person putatively in charge of the FS section.  So I too am frustrated.

But I also find forests and districts where I really couldn’t tell the difference between the old FS and the new FS in terms of responsiveness. So there’s that. And some are actually better because they have more technology to better answer questions.

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Anyway, I think broad generalizations don’t help.  I do think talking about our specific concerns, and getting them in the open would help. Like what could the Forest Service do to increase transparency and accountability, and give people better customer service experiences?  We could start by learning from units that already do those things well. Remember that old management slogan “catch people doing something right?”

Forest Service Leaders and Willowhood

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Lately on TSW there have been a great many critiques of the current Forest Service situation. We’ll go into specific critiques in another post.  But some of the critiques are fairly broad-brush, like this one Frank Carroll quoted from Zeke Lunder (I don’t have independent confirmation that Zeke said it):

“We should…not pretend … the Forest Service is a functional agency because it’s not   They can’t meet our expectations of them getting anything done because they can’t . They lost so much they’re really not a functional agency. They can’t do anything at scale, and they haven’t been able to since they stopped cutting big trees …. They were really good at cutting big trees …, but since then they no longer have a function. They’ve lost their esprit de corps and sense of purpose, and their reason for being has gone away …. So, they still have to manage the land with active management …what does that leave us? Well, using fire is active forest management. So, they’re using fire.”

Well, you see, I don’t believe that that’s true.  And I’ll talk about that in the next post.  But here I want to talk about the fact that the Forest Service as an agency is responding to the currents of the time.  And I think that this is a very important conversation to have, and hopefully we can continue sharing our stories and understanding different points of view.

 Lao Tzu: “A strong wind may topple the sturdy oak, but the willow bends and lets the wind pass through.”

Let’s talk about this point in time.  It has many folks of the Baby Boomer generation retiring, and new people being hired.  It includes post-Covid work at home (although pressure to allow that started a decade ago), so that people may not have the informal connections and training via storytelling around the field lunch of the past. ROs and SOs in some areas are (expensive) ghost towns.  In some ways, work at home broke both the traditional social organization and relationship building, and the visitor response, as in some of the examples we have seen in the comments.   My friends in other fields have observed different work ethics and cultures in some of the younger generations.  Their salaries don’t go as far as they did, especially in terms of housing.

So there are many challenges, which  the BLM has also faced (it would be interesting to do surveys and compare, social scientists out there?).  Then there was a vast infusion of funding, the likes of which had never been seen, as well as changes in the budget structure.  Many of us outsiders still don’t understand how that works, or how that change may have affected appropriate ranger district autonomy.

Then there has been a tremendous increase in employees being hired from outside the agency, including from the military, USFWS, Congressional staffs, and so on.  That idea is a very old one in management, even from my day.  The idea is that you don’t really have to understand the work or the land or the people, you are interchangeable from McDonalds to Tesla to the CIA to the Forest Service, if you are a good leader.  This used to be true of Senior Executives and political appointees, but has now reached the District Ranger level.

So… the Forest Service today confronts many challenges that are different from what we retirees remember, which have nothing at all to do with “big trees.” And I am going to ask for some grace for them, in addition to specific critiques and ideas for improvement.

I’m going to tell a story about another institution, the Yale School of Forestry (when I attended), later Forestry and Environmental Studies,  and today the Yale School of the Environment.   Two years ago, I attended an alumni gathering.  Dean Indy Burke spoke, and I happened to be sitting next to a group of what I’ll call “uppity” alums. They were mostly from New England.  They were younger than I (well, most people still out and about are, so there’s that).

It turns out that these alumni weren’t happy about the name change.  I had been on some Zooms about it, and it appeared to me that if YFES didn’t change their name, circling shark administrators from other units would see YFES as a minnow and yes, start a completely new school.  It seems to be feature of the Zeitgeist that more different administrative units are needed to coordinate the workers, in this case,  professors.

Back to the Forest Service.  I was told by a reliable source that 43% of the Forest Service works in direct provision of services on the Ranger District.  It would be interesting to know what it was in the past.  So.. there are forces in both academia and government (and probably other institutions) that have led to of more what we might call overhead.  I myself worked in overhead pretty much my whole career (various kinds of support to the field), so I am not dissing the idea.   It’s just that it seems to have an almost cancer-like tendency to grow and spread if not consciously contained.

So Dean Burke was being a willow, standing her ground and bending, which was necessary to maintain the institution and keep it from the circling sharks.   Now, we are not privy to the conversations between Randy Moore and the Secretary. let alone the Secretary or Randy’s conversations with CEQ or other White House-favored entities.  So I think it is difficult or impossible to judge FS leadership on its willowhood.

A few other observations from Indy’s presentation.   She pointed out that Yale profs had an important role in recent legislation, I think it was the IRA.  I think we were supposed to think that this was a good thing, but I did not.  They also were proud of funding NPR to reach recreational fisherfolk to talk about the dangers of climate change with examples of how fishing will be impacted.   My uppity neighbors noted  “the people they are trying to reach don’t listen to NPR.”

Dean Burke also replied to a question about the name change something along the lines of ” forestry sounded too “extractive.”  This exchange occurred in Kroon Hall which proudly touts wood from the Yale Forest.  The hall is in the photo above.

Our uppity alum suggested “maybe this is an opportunity to educate them that extraction is not a bad thing”.  But no, of course, not,  because that is not really the issue.   It’s about that there the need for institutions to align with the ideas of the time and avoid sharks.

Is it a little bit silly to decry extraction in a wooden building? Of course.  We might call it hypocritical (in general, I think we should rename ourselves Homo hypocritus).  We might say that the non-extractive emperor has no clothes (of course, since clothing is manufactured using natural resources).  But it doesn’t matter.  If you work in an institution, especially if you are a leader, you have to be a willow not an oak for the institution to survive. And institutions still do good things.. teach students, or maintain campgrounds, or do prescribed fires.

And we don’t have much insight into the strength and direction of the winds that blow the Forest Service, nor is there much of a chance we will find out.

Which is not to say that we cannot attempt to understand, or critique what we see.  I just wanted to set this context.

 

The Wildfire Policy Windows are Shaking: Guest Post by Frank Carroll

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This guest post from Frank Carroll was originally a comment.

The Chief received a watershed letter that will ring down the Ages in wildland fire policy. Mark this day. A shot has been fired and the windows are shaking.

https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:67d7585d-31e2-4587-a999-c60aabe128e2

Sharon: I posted the letter in a previous post for non-Adobe folks.

Montana Governor Gianforte wrote to the Chief to tell him that Montana would no longer participate in science fiction and that “full suppression” could be anything other than “anchor, flank, and hold.” Those of us working on this issue for the past decade are euphoric. Montana has removed any doubt that FS firefighters intentionally use wildfires to manage natural resources.

This development is critical for many reasons. First, Montana will no longer share the outrageous and growing costs of giant, summertime prescribed wildfires under the Master Agreement. The governor told the chief, “Either put the fire out immediately, or you’re on your own paying for your alternative strategies.” This is an astonishing and overdue development. Gianforte’s letter shatters the deception that the FS is working with cooperators, and everyone is on board with the wildfire use policy. They are not.

See my presentation here: https://1drv.ms/p/s!AuKr93RuXe49gbIHkbk4dY3DoqJvbA

Sharon: I converted the ppt to pdf for easier viewing Smokey Wire Version 1.0 10.12.2024

With the FS budget in complete disarray and a billion dollars in the hole, the FS needs the states to participate to defray the high costs of current policies. The states are not sympathetic. Many key state leaders first heard the FS was expanding wildfires on purpose as a result of my work with Sarah Hyden, Joe Reddan, Van Elsbernd, Nadine Bailey, Quentin Rhoades, Roger Jaegle, and many others meeting for the past several years with states Attorneys General in Montana, Idaho, and others, and in multiple presentations to any significant group who would listen and buy us lunch. We lobbied Congress at home and in DC. We challenged the FS’s assertions of legal management strategies in meetings and in fire briefings.

The Governor’s letter clarifies that the vagaries of wildfire use and applied wildfire in PODs and firesheds is not a conspiracy theory or a figment of the imaginations of disgruntled former employees. Gianforte says it’s all too real, and he’s not playing.

I regret feeling so much affirmation after such a long fight, but I do, and it’s an important fight.

The days of the Chevron Deference ended in June this year. The time of National, Regional, and Unit EIS’s addressing wildfire use, disclosing impacts, inventorying the casualties to date, cooperating to forge robust public scoping and planning, and differences of opinion no longer ignored has come and I welcome it. The Chief will have to retire and make way for an effective and creative manager who can dig out of the mess.

The Forest Service is lost and struggling. The NLT, RFs, and Rangers have developed an unhealthy contempt for the mission. I think it blossomed in the pandemic. It manifests as arrogance and a complete lack of focus on the public. I went to the Boise Supervisor’s Office a few weeks ago. The Visitor Information Center was open, but no one staffed it except a lone federal security guard. He told me two women were supposed to be there but were “unreliable” and often not at their posts. He said I could try later, but there were no guarantees. Most of the staff was not there. The historic archive was thrown away by new kids who didn’t understand the need to preserve federal records. There were no principal staff officers ready to assist anyone.

The Chief and RFs allowed fear to rule from 2010 to today. The agency has been overcome by false constructs of employee health and wellness, now interpreted as meaning everyone can do whatever they want about coming to work (or not), showing up to work together to teach each other (or not), and interacting with the public (or not).

Employees are allowed to stay home. GS Fantastics in the 13-15 range live in their awesome refuges at home or wherever they want, traveling at will to spendy locations and racking up huge expenses. No one is going to work. There’s no opportunity for new kids to learn from old hands. They are lost and afraid. It’s a perfect storm of a once-powerful and now inert agency no longer able to muster a relevant presence on the ground.

I didn’t believe it when I first heard it, but the folks at the top came up with solutions to the current budget shortfall last month that beggars the imagination. The first idea was not to hire the seasonal workforce; now, it’s a solid plan bemoaned by High Country News. The Second was to consolidate Ranger Districts. Hopefully, this nutty idea was stillborn. There was no one with enough courage to enter into a Reduction in Force focused not on seasonals but on the herds of GS-13-15 planning staffers, teams scions, and others at the WO, Region, and Forest level who now constitute the bulk of the nondiscretionary workforce. Lol!! What?? Now is the time for buy-outs and mass reassignments.

The Chief disingenuously claims the current permanent staff will take up the seasonal slack, opening trails, cleaning campgrounds, and handling the work the public expects and deserves to have as support for their use of their lands. What the hell happened to leaders who knew how to lead? What happened to the Forest Service?

In any event, the States are no longer interested in enabling the once iconic agency to fail to grasp its own mission. They are saying, not theoretically, that they are not paying for the pretend party in the halls of the now-empty Forest Service offices (where we are still paying rent and utilities for no-show staff). I’ll stop here lest my fury overcome my message. Suffice it to say that the era of irresponsible, anti-public service, union-driven craziness, and a goofy, indefensible assertion of “safetiness,” is coming to a crashing end: Just in time.

Please read the attached letter several times and rejoice. It took a Governor to drag us back to reality. The entire workforce and lots of accountability will drag the FS back from the brink.

I remain optimistic. My Dad and I served from 1943 to 2011. We know how to do stuff and we can do it with unafraid leaders. We may have the chance to go back to the future with Elon Musk in charge of government reform.

Montana Governor Letter to FS on Wildfire Cost-Sharing

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Frank Carroll posted this link in a comment which I will post separately.  There are a couple of different topics in this letter, including cost-sharing agreements, transparency and communication, including definitions of what is a full suppression strategy. It would be interesting to hear the FS side of this story.
US:67d7585d-31e2-4587-a999-c60aabe128e2

Montana Governor Gianforte wrote to the Chief to tell him that Montana would no longer participate in science fiction and that “full suppression” could be anything other than “anchor, flank, and hold.” Those of us working on this issue for the past decade are euphoric. Montana has removed any doubt that FS firefighters intentionally use wildfires to manage natural resources.

This development is critical for many reasons. First, Montana will no longer share the outrageous and growing costs of giant, summertime prescribed wildfires under the Master Agreement. The governor told the chief, “Either put the fire out immediately, or you’re on your own paying for your alternative strategies.” This is an astonishing and overdue development. Gianforte’s letter shatters the deception that the FS is working with cooperators, and everyone is on board with the wildfire use policy. They are not.

See my presentation here: https://1drv.ms/p/s!AuKr93RuXe49gbIHkbk4dY3DoqJvbA

With the FS budget in complete disarray and a billion dollars in the hole, the FS needs the states to participate to defray the high costs of current policies. The states are not sympathetic. Many key state leaders first heard the FS was expanding wildfires on purpose as a result of my work with Sarah Hyden, Joe Reddan, Van Elsbernd, Nadine Bailey, Quentin Rhoades, Roger Jaegle, and many others meeting for the past several years with states Attorneys General in Montana, Idaho, and others, and in multiple presentations to any significant group who would listen and buy us lunch. We lobbied Congress at home and in DC. We challenged the FS’s assertions of legal management strategies in meetings and in fire briefings.

The Governor’s letter clarifies that the vagaries of wildfire use and applied wildfire in PODs and firesheds is not a conspiracy theory or a figment of the imaginations of disgruntled former employees. Gianforte says it’s all too real, and he’s not playing.

I regret feeling so much affirmation after such a long fight, but I do, and it’s an important fight.

The days of the Chevron Deference ended in June this year. The time of National, Regional, and Unit EIS’s addressing wildfire use, disclosing impacts, inventorying the casualties to date, cooperating to forge robust public scoping and planning, and differences of opinion no longer ignored has come and I welcome it. The Chief will have to retire and make way for an effective and creative manager who can dig out of the mess.

The Forest Service is lost and struggling. The NLT, RFs, and Rangers have developed an unhealthy contempt for the mission. I think it blossomed in the pandemic. It manifests as arrogance and a complete lack of focus on the public. I went to the Boise Supervisor’s Office a few weeks ago. The Visitor Information Center was open, but no one staffed it except a lone federal security guard. He told me two women were supposed to be there but were “unreliable” and often not at their posts. He said I could try later, but there were no guarantees. Most of the staff was not there. The historic archive was thrown away by new kids who didn’t understand the need to preserve federal records. There were no principal staff officers ready to assist anyone.

The Chief and RFs allowed fear to rule from 2010 to today. The agency has been overcome by false constructs of employee health and wellness, now interpreted as meaning everyone can do whatever they want about coming to work (or not), showing up to work together to teach each other (or not), and interacting with the public (or not).

Employees are allowed to stay home. GS Fantastics in the 13-15 range live in their awesome refuges at home or wherever they want, traveling at will to spendy locations and racking up huge expenses. No one is going to work. There’s no opportunity for new kids to learn from old hands. They are lost and afraid. It’s a perfect storm of a once-powerful and now inert agency no longer able to muster a relevant presence on the ground.

I didn’t believe it when I first heard it, but the folks at the top came up with solutions to the current budget shortfall last month that beggars the imagination. The first idea was not to hire the seasonal workforce; now, it’s a solid plan bemoaned by High Country News. The Second was to consolidate Ranger Districts. Hopefully, this nutty idea was stillborn. There was no one with enough courage to enter into a Reduction in Force focused not on seasonals but on the herds of GS-13-15 planning staffers, teams scions, and others at the WO, Region, and Forest level who now constitute the bulk of the nondiscretionary workforce. Lol!! What?? Now is the time for buy-outs and mass reassignments.

The Chief disingenuously claims the current permanent staff will take up the seasonal slack, opening trails, cleaning campgrounds, and handling the work the public expects and deserves to have as support for their use of their lands. What the hell happened to leaders who knew how to lead? What happened to the Forest Service?

In any event, the States are no longer interested in enabling the once iconic agency to fail to grasp its own mission. They are saying, not theoretically, that they are not paying for the pretend party in the halls of the now-empty Forest Service offices (where we are still paying rent and utilities for no-show staff). I’ll stop here lest my fury overcome my message. Suffice it to say that the era of irresponsible, anti-public service, union-driven craziness, and a goofy, indefensible assertion of “safetiness,” is coming to a crashing end: Just in time.

Please read the attached letter several times and rejoice. It took a Governor to drag us back to reality. The entire workforce and lots of accountability will drag the FS back from the brink.

I remain optimistic. My Dad and I served from 1943 to 2011. We know how to do stuff and we can do it with unafraid leaders. We may have the chance to go back to the future with Elon Musk in charge of government reform.

The USFS is cutting its seasonal workforce and public lands will suffer

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From High Country News.

“The budget cut’s impact on hiring extends beyond seasonal workers. The agency also announced that, with very few exceptions, it won’t be hiring any external candidates for any position within the agency, meaning that any open positions will have to be filled by current employees. And since seasonal work is a common steppingstone to a permanent role, many temporary workers who hoped for a career in public-land management now find themselves at a loss.”

Untrammeling the Wilderness via Prescribed Fire: Journal Article and Story Map

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Thanks to The Fire Networks for this link.

Here are 4 key takeaways from our work:

  • The exclusion of fire from wilderness over the last 120 years – including the suppression of lightning-ignited fires and the removal of Indigenous cultural burning – demonstrates a clear alteration of historical ecological processes, with cascading negative effects that include substantial changes to fire-adapted forest ecosystems, increased risk of uncharacteristically severe wildfires, and greater vulnerability to fire-driven conversion from forest to shrubland, grassland, or other vegetation types that do not resemble long-standing conditions.

  • Intentional burning may be necessary to restore historical fire regimes to certain wilderness landscapes. Such burning also provides opportunities for increased engagement between federal agencies and Tribes seeking to resume practices of cultural burning.

  • Despite calls for the use of prescribed fire in wilderness spanning decades, the implementation of intentional human-ignited fire in wilderness continues to face specific and unique barriers and challenges.

  • However, some wilderness areas have been able to successfully implement prescribed fire. We provide several examples, including the positive effects of this burning.

And check out the journal article and/or the story map .  The story map has great photos.