I’ve always wondered if the feel of planning would be different if we kicked off revisions with a, say, Blank National Forest art week or weekend, with readings, visual arts, music and theater (possibly with juries and prizes provided by NGOs?) around what the forest means to people. Aspects of this art might then become touchstones in the often head and not heart-filled planning discussions. Anyway, I guess right-brain planning remains unexplored for now, although here’s a contribution from a planning practitioner who prefers privacy (how’s that for alliteration?) who feels the same longings. I wonder how many of us feel this way?
As for me, I have implemented 1982 Rule
Planned to implement the 1994 draft (remember?)
Participated in the evaluation of 2000
Worked on training modules for the 2005
Attempted to implement the 2005
Attempted to implement 2008
Attempting to implement 1982 – again
Anticipate implementing 2011-12 before I retire.
So I offer as a practical exercise and a bit of fun (but I don’t want this classified as “planning humor”) a real online attempt at collaboration of a different kind – an artistic collaboration if you will. But as you may garner, I believe this very concept can transfer into real forest planning collaboration, although perhaps not in rhyme or free verse.
I have for you a poem. You may or may not agree with its contents. Some stanzas are perhaps well formed, some in obvious need of refinement. Maybe some readers who have not made entry or comment will choose to participate. I hope so. Use your creative powers. If you have a replacement for a stanza, reply with the stanza number. Here goes:
The Planning Rule Poem
1. Forget “the best science’
And admit this way’s useless
To “manage” a forest
And follow a plan
When the buzz words change
More than the public can stand
2. New perspectives, no
Ecosystem management, better
EMS, AMS, CER, now ASSESS
All the same, but it’s DIFFERENT
THIS TIME and responsive
To everyone everywhere always, you bet
3. We agree we adore it
We plan to “restore” it
We want it to be
What WE want it to be
And our science is better
Than your science, you see
4. I have this idea
I may be a heretic
To blaspheme “the best science”
As relates to a forest
And employ in its stead
The best ART – there, I’ve said it
5. In the segments of planning
I completely agree
Assess, plan, monitor
One, two, three
And back ‘round again
As the case may be
To adapt, but collaboratively
6. Which is not to say
That Americans should outsource
Our need for the things
That come from the forest
Or underneath it
Of course that IS what we practice today
6. By law forests should
And must in the future
Provide goods and services
(Oh – I’ve heard that before)
With all the new jargon that only confuses
National forests are still about “multiple uses.”
7. ADMIT IT, ADMIT IT, ADMIT IT, I say
Congress has never left NFMA
Behind, so just say to the interested parties
Let’s work together to create in these woods
An artistic collaboration of goods
And services to provide for us and our children to be.
8. Sure we folks in the forest are going to leave evidence
Of our presence, our passing, our needs at this time;
As we need to use resources we know they aren’t limitless
As we play in the forest and know that it succors us
We must simply take care that we don’t take too much
Is that really so hard? Why such a big fuss?
9. Art’s a translation of human sensations
Into a thing that can be experienced
By others as substance, or form, or event
Art is creation, not explanation
Or a scientific finding of association
And a plan’s not a “fact,” it’s a human creation
10. Art moves us ways that can’t be explained
By pieces and bits of data contained
In findings of science
And forests move us in that same way
We plan to create, not to explain or reveal
We know what we like, we know what we feel
11. Having stated what should be obvious
To those who are blinded by dogmatic adherence
To any one notion of “truth” when it comes
To the realm of forest “management”
Be it “preserve it” or “use it” or even “sustain it”
Or “make it resilient” as if WE understood it
12. But “plan” we will, and we’ll to it together
And attempt to find harmony among all the elements
Harmony – a musical artistic term that also is fact
That science can explain, but the notion came first;
It’s the combination of observation and imagination
That artistic collaboration makes a scientific reality.
I am gross and perverted
I’m obsessed ‘n deranged
I have existed for years
But very much has been changed
I’m the Rule of the Government
And industry, 1982
For I am destined to Rule
And regulate you
I may be vile and pernicious
But you can’t look away
I say you’re so “Scientitious”
With the stuff that I say
I’m the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I’m the new Rule oozin’ out
From your collaborative mess!
You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the eco-garbage that I feed you
Until the day the forests don’t need you
Don’t go for help . . . no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my green mold
And you will think as you are told
Until the wildfires have gone cold
That’s right, folks . . .
Don’t touch that land!
Well, I am the slime from your NGO
Oozin’ along on your courthouse room floor
I am the slime from your NGO
Can’t stop the slime, people, lookit them go
I am the slime from your NGO
Oozin’ along on your political floor
I am the slime from your NGO
Can’t stop the slime, people, lookit them go
.
.
.
.
With apologies to the Zappa Family Trust. This works best as a rap song, like Frank intended.