Warning: Fuzzy Concept in Regulation- “Ecological Integrity”- IV- After the “AND”

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Fortunately for everyone this will be my last post on the concept of “Ecological Integrity”as described in the NFMA Rule. Perhaps unfortunately, not my last post on the planning directives. Other guest posts on the directives are welcome. Wading through the directives was a lonely business, and thanks much to the others on this blog who suffered and shared.

So let’s return to the definition in the regulation of “ecological integrity”:

“The quality or condition of an ecosystem when its dominant ecological characteristics (for example, composition, structure, function, connectivity, and species composition and diversity) occur within the natural range of variation and can withstand and recover from most perturbations imposed by natural environmental dynamics or human influence.”

We have discussed the first part in previous posts, here, here and here… now let’s look at after the “and”:
“can withstand and recover from most perturbations imposed by natural environmental dynamics or human influence.”

Well, that sounds like a good idea. But what “can withstand and recover”? It appears to be the “dominant ecological characteristics” composition, structure and function, species composition and diversity”. That sounds like “everything you can possibly think of.” So everything would have to go back to being the same as it was prior to “most” perturbations. And how is that?

Natural range of variation (NRV). Spatial and temporal variation in ecosystem characteristics under historic disturbance regimes during a reference period. The reference period considered should be sufficiently long to include the full range of variation produced by dominant natural disturbance regimes, often several centuries, for such disturbances as fire and flooding and should also include short-term variation and cycles in climate. “Natural range of variation” (NRV) is a term used synonymously with historic range of variation or range of natural variation. The NRV is a tool for assessing ecological integrity, and does not necessarily constitute a management target or desired condition. The NRV can help identify key structural, functional, compositional, and connectivity characteristics, for which plan components may be important for either maintenance or restoration of such ecological conditions.

But how do we know if something (er.. everything) will “withstand and recover from “most” perturbations?” Who gets to decide what “most” is?

While I thought that the 2000 rule was a full employment program for fire ecologists and historic vegetation ecologists.. this sounds like a full employment program for lawyers and modelers, as well as the fire ecologists and historic vegetation ecologists. I wonder who was sitting around the table or on the phone when this rule was developed, and if there is some correlation between the disciplines of those folks and the disciplines advantaged by this language ;)?

If we agree that climate change is unprecedented, then with climate change, the past cannot be a predictor of the future.. so we don’t really have any information, not do we have any predictive capability other than modeling. Of course, our climate models are not particularly accurate at the scales we are interested in, and humans are constantly not doing what we assumed they would do when we ran the scenarios in the models.

But for me, all this is a distraction from dealing with real environmental problems of today (dirt in streams, invasive species) and acknowledging that time’s arrow only goes one way. Yet this rule and its directives have us spending time digging up the past (sorry, Bob) and modeling the unmodelable. We simply have no clue about the future at the detail required in this rule.

Before climate change, we used to hear a lot the paraphrase of Haldane “ecosystems are more complex than we think, they are more complex than we can think,” with the sense that we needed to preserve species. Which is fine. But if in fact they are that complex, then what are we doing depending on models over observations today in a regulation?

It’s clear that it is not really about “science”. I like to go back to Michael O’Connell’s warning of 1999 in his testimony here (my italics).

Ecosystems are more complex than we think. There are many complexities at all levels of biological organization that cannot be measured, perceived, or even conceived of, that directly affect the viability of conservation solutions. Science can never provide all the answers to questions about conservation, so the response should be to exercise both caution and prudence when designing answers. Wise solutions don’t necessarily try to compensate for factors that cannot be defined, but at the same time they leave room for them. A good example of this is true adaptive management, where the results of ongoing monitoring are used to adjust the conservation program based on new information and changes in circumstance.

Nature is full of surprises. Ecological systems are characterized by non-linear, non-equilibrium and often seemingly random dynamics. Both unexpected events and unanticipated consequences affect the long term viability of any conservation solution. This uncertainty is a given, and its runs directly counter to the political, social and economic desire for predictability in the outcome of conservation plans. It is better to be forthright in acknowledging that the issue of “no surprises” is not a scientific question of predicting the future, but instead a social question of how to deal with those surprises.
Conservation planning is interdisciplinary, but science is the foundation. Creating a long-term solution for species and the ecosystems on which they depend is a complicated exercise in reconciling social, political, legal, economic and biological factors. But if science must be one of several competing interests in the negotiation instead of the method of evaluating how to reach specified objectives, then conservation outcomes will always be undermined. This raises the critical issue of how to integrate both scientific information and scientists themselves into the planning process.

So let’s take a real world example.. say a ski area. Does having an area suitable for skiing “promote ecological integrity” ? Well, a ski area would be outside the RNV, so that’s out, so we don’t have to go to perturbation. So are we expecting that the next White River Plan revision will be litigated for having ski area suitability and thereby not promoting integrity?

So let’s move on to resilience.. say the climate is warming and drying. You want to thin some ponderosa pine trees so they have enough water to stay healthy and do some fuel reduction. A lower basal area (than in the past historical period you picked for NRV) would be better in terms of resilience to “perturbations” . But as far as the historians tell you, that is not in NRV. So the two requirements for “ecological integrity”, NRV and resilience, could actually be in conflict. (aside: picking a reference period can’t really be “scientific” so this idea of NRV seems like “science” but isn’t really). As in you can have one or the other, but not both.

My question is “are we way overthinking this?” WTH is this doing in a regulation and thereafter in the court system?

Here’s
what Mike Dombeck said: just plain English and inspiring. Have we changed so much since he said this? Here’s the link, the whole thing is worth a read.

My expectation is that everything we do—every environmental impact statement we write, every timber sale, recreation plan, mining plan, or allotment management plan we approve—will not compromise the health of the land. I want to make it very clear that no Forest Service program has dominance over another. Timber is not more important than wildlife and fisheries. Nor is wildlife and fisheries more important than timber or recreation, or cultural resources, and so on.

So what happened between Mike’s term and now? Have we really changed this intention (no one is more important than the other), or are we so wrapped around the axle of fuzzy words that we can’t even tell what we mean? Are we adrift in a sea of legal hooks?

25 thoughts on “Warning: Fuzzy Concept in Regulation- “Ecological Integrity”- IV- After the “AND””

  1. Frankly, ecological integrity is a well-established scientific concept, which seems to be reasonably well defined in the quotations being critiqued.

    Some of the critiques are leaps of non-logic, as here:

    ‘”It appears to be the “dominant ecological characteristics” composition, structure and function, species composition and diversity”. That sounds like “everything you can think of.’

    Composition, structure and function, species composition, and diversity, is not “everything you can think of”.

    It is a specific, though deep, list of characteristics that define an ecosystem.

    Equating that list with “everything you can think of” sounds more like lampooning, than building understanding.

    Yes, ecosystems are complex. Yes, that makes it difficult to regulate how they can be perturbed without ongoing degradation leading eventually to ecosystem collapse.

    Complexity is in the nature of nature.

    It means that science, our cultural toolkit for dealing with complexity in precise and consistent ways, needs to be applied, patiently, intelligently, full bore.

    Reply
    • OK, Kevin, this seems like a good opportunity to debate this proposition: that the term “ecological integrity” is a valid scientific concept.

      You asserted that it is “well-established” which it might be in some communities and scientific disciplines, but not so in others.

      Being “valid” should mean more than being accepted by some groups within the scientific community. If scientific information gains its legitimacy from its empiricism (rather than being an opinion poll of scientists), then we should be able to draw a line between facts found and conclusions drawn, as in a simple administrative appeal.

      In my previous post here I cited published papers with critiques of the concept . Because of its signature place in the 2012 planning rule, and because the rule also says to consider the “best available science”, I think it would be interesting to debate the proposition above on this blog because the concept does mix values and empirical facts and it may be illustrative to parse them out in the open.

      As many have pointed out, many “scientific” findings are accepted because there is no public venue for review and no possibility for dialogue even within, or across scientific disciplines, let alone with the public..

      Anyway, I am up for a debate with anyone.

      Reply
  2. “So let’s move on to resilience.. say the climate is warming and drying. You want to thin some ponderosa pine trees so they have enough water to stay healthy and do some fuel reduction. A lower basal area (than in the past historical period you picked for NRV) would be better in terms of resilience to “perturbations” . But as far as the historians tell you, that is not in NRV. So the two requirements for “ecological integrity”, NRV and resilience, could actually be in conflict.”

    Yes, in the context of climate change, NRV and resilience may well be in conflict.

    Furthermore, in the context of climate change, additional active management actions, even those aimed specifically at adaptation to climate-related impacts, are inherently high-risk. This is simply because ecosystems have a limited budget of perturbation they can absorb, and climate change takes a big and growing bite out of that budget before management actions even start.

    Because of this difficult and inherent effect, I believe, from a great deal of study and analysis, that it will turn out over the coming years that there are essentially only two paths to effectively managing most ecosystems for climate change:

    1) Passive management, like expanding preservation areas, that increase ecosystem resilience without causing additional perturbation.

    2) Overall climate mitigation, to limit the intensity of climate change impacts on ecosystems.

    I’ve observed that most agencies, and even the Federal government overall, are much more comfortable talking about climate impacts and adaptation to them, while remaining to date quite reticent about climate mitigation.

    Yet in fact, the science shows that if we don’t get serious on climate mitigation within the next two or three years, it is most like that feedback effects will drive climate change to the intensity at which most of the imagined adaptations are not feasible.

    Climate mitigation has become essential for resilience at the ecosystem scale, as much or more as it has become essential for resilience at the global scale.

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  3. Sharon, yes, the planning directives folks have been over-thinking this problem. Yes, full employment program for lawyers and modelers. But lawyers can have field days even with Dombeck’s wording: “will not compromise the health of the land.” Does “will not compromise” mean not even for a few years after a treatment? Who defines “health”?

    How about this for a planning directive: Plans shall meet the requirements the Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act, provided that overall resilience to disturbance is maintained.

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  4. We can’t do the whole job, properly within existing laws, by just dealing with the MUSY Act. Because Congress, in its infinite wisdom, did direct all land management agencies to also protect rare and endangered species, to create, manage and protect Wilderness, to protect and provide clean water (CWA), etc. etc.

    And the reality is that some of these laws/regs conflict on some specific tracts of the national forest. There are steep, sensitive-soil watersheds where extensive roading and certain types/levels of logging will impact the quality of downstream water, and will impact the hydrograph as well.

    I don’t need to dwell on other examples of inherent conflicts in management options or solutions.
    Forest management in parts of R-1 after WWII was management in name only…thousands of miles of roads were built on steep, erodable soils with little regard to downstream impacts. New sawmills were encouraged and enticed into the area with little regard to the long-term flow of logs and the political commitments of keeping these mills going and the workers working. The local demands for protecting rare/endangered species or for recreation, or for solitude or for clean water were so minimal (or unrecognized) that roading and logging dominated every-day ranger district business.

    But all of that has changed, dramatically, over the past three decades. The national forests are now “national” in reality, not just log decks for the local mills. People in Maine have concerns for forests in Washington State. And they have demanded a voice in how these ecosystems are damaged or managed. The almost total local control of the 1940s-1960’s is gone. This is reality.

    And the other reality is that we really don’t know how to manage long-term as strictly defined in law/regulation. The agency is in fibrillation. Confused direction. Terrible staff morale. Inadequate funding/staffing. And no relief in sight. Sharon has done a great job in outlining the issues, but the solution to these issues is still hiding from us all. I have no answers, but WUIs, prescribed burns and thinning are not the ultimate solution.

    Reply
    • Ed, you raise a question that I think is important to consider…

      if the FS followed MUSYA and all the environmental laws, would that be enough or do they need to do something more?

      Before (1982) we had “viability” which is more.
      Now we have “integrity” plus “viability”.
      Meanwhile the other main multiple use agency, BLM does not have those extras.

      I wonder why the FS needs more “extra protection” than the BLM?

      People in Maine, since you mentioned it, seem to be into wood, wood for energy and even biomass for export. Rural people in Maine might be more sensitive to the feelings of rural people, in say Oregon- they also have a strong streak of independence from government. Interesting potential graduate student topic.

      Reply
      • People in Maine also own their own land, unlike the western US in which management decisions are typically implemented by a national government directive.

        In Maine, landowners pay taxes to the State. In many western US counties, most of the land is owned by the federal government and there are no tax revenues for those counties.

        It seems like the USFS needs “better protection” because they have forests in many more States than BLM and therefore more apt to have “critical habitat,” which depends on this kind of verbiage to support the environmental industry and their legal staffs. There’s a reason the “forest industry” keeps letting this type of wordplay enter the regulatory process — less competition from the public lands for their own products.

        I think, bottom line, is that we (American taxpayers) need “extra protection” from the USFWS. Our forests and rural communities are being severely damaged by their “scientific” rulings.

        I am in complete agreement with Sharon when she says: “As many have pointed out, many “scientific” findings are accepted because there is no public venue for review and no possibility for dialogue even within, or across scientific disciplines, let alone with the public.”

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        • Let’s also recall that in western Oregon counties, private industrial timber lands also now pay virtually no taxes.

          I understand the reasoning for Federal timber lands to pay no local taxes, like all Federal lands across the nation – whether or not I agree with it. And the O&C lands do effectively pay a very large harvest tax.

          I have a harder time understanding why large private owners are effectively exempted from both property taxes and harvest taxes – a much sweeter deal, even than the public gives to its own lands.

          And, why it is so rare for this to be mentioned.

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          • Hi Kevin: I’ve always been under the impression that the large private landowners paid a significant amount of severance and/or property taxes. Do you have some figures you can share?

            Personally, I’m far more interested in the amount of income and property taxes their employees pay. In Oregon, private forestland management actions have been regulated for nearly 70 years and we still have lots of salmon, deer, owls, bobcats, and murrelets — and timber, fresh water, and campgrounds. Also, schools, libraries, parks, new homes, new businesses, and playgrounds.

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            • Yeah, it is little known. For owners of over 5000 acres, the severance tax is zero. It was phased out for the big guys in 1990s, under cover of the owl controversy, and the loss of revenue to the O&C counties is of a similar order of magnitude to the reduction in O&C timber harvest payments.

              Under 5000 acres, you still have to pay severance tax.

              The property tax for big timber land owners works out to about 1/40th to 1/50th of what a regular tax payer would pay for similar property value.

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              • Kevin: Are you saying that if Weyerhaeuser pays $1 million in property taxes, that a “regular taxpayer” would have to pay $40 million to $50 million in taxes for the same property? That’s what it sounds like.

                Do you have any numbers to back this up?

                Also, I think the severance tax situation was resolved in the 1970s in full light of political posturing and had nothing to do with spotted owls. Maybe it was the 1980s — but up until then the Oregon Department of Taxation produced and maintained far better records on private forestlands in Oregon that either the State Department of Forestry or the US government.

                Reply
              • Kevin, I looked on the Dept of Revenue Oregon website (which is very helpful, kudos to them!). It has a section on how forestland is taxed.

                http://www.oregon.gov/dor/TIMBER/Pages/how-forestland.aspx
                and it says..

                Purpose: The Forest Products Harvest Tax (FPHT) applies to timber harvested from any land in Oregon, except most tribal lands. No distinction is made between timber harvested from private lands or government-owned lands. The tax law exempts the first 25 thousand board feet (MBF) of timber harvested by an owner each year.

                The receipts from this tax program are dedicated to the partial funding of state-run programs that promote forest research, fire prevention and fire suppression, forest practices act administration, and improve public understanding of Oregon’s forest resources.

                Tax rates: The Oregon Legislature and the Oregon Forest Resources Institute (OFRI) board of directors develop the FPHT tax rates. These rates are applied to each one thousand board feet (MBF) of timber harvested.

                is this different from the “severance tax” you are talking about?

                Reply
                • Yes, a small “Forest Products Harvest Tax” (FPHT) continues to be levied, at a board foot rate which currently comes out below 0.5% of value. This partially funds forestry research and operations in the state, not the general state budget.

                  And it is indeed different from the severance tax and privilege taxes which were previously applied, which contributed to broader purposes, like a good part of the much-lamented Federal payments.

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  5. Sadly, some people have adopted a “do no harm” policy on public lands. Some are unwilling to allow short term impacts in exchange for long term benefits. Some think that anything “commercial” has to be necessarily “damaging”, in both short and long terms. Every decision we make, or don’t make, has long and short term impacts. That is an important concept that cannot be ignored. “Damage” will happen regardless of what we do, or what we don’t do.

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  6. Just a couple of points in response to the original post. The rule does not define NRV in terms of historic conditions. The draft directives do, and because of this problem they should be changed to define NRV more generally as reference conditions that are based on best available science.

    Human structures and uses like ski areas do not appear to be part of the ecological integrity definition because they are not like the examples listed of ‘dominant ecological characteristics.’ (Though arguably if they cause a decline in species composition or diversity, that should be considered.) And because the broader term ‘ecological conditions’ is used where the rule refers to human structures and uses. This model could allow for terrific ecological integrity that is unusable by some species because they can’t get to it or because people are using it. This is another area that could be improved in the directives.

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  7. That is interesting.. my searching shows only one mention of nrv in the rule, in the definition of ecological integrity.

    But how can “reference conditions” be chosen on the basis of “science”? Maybe an example would be helpful. It seems that humans will select a time they want to go back to based on reasons of some human preference. Nature doesn’t care about 500 AD or 2000 BC.

    A person could possibly argue that managing the ski area changes the vegetation composition compared to what was there during the reference period, or the hydrology because trees are not growing there. And while we normally think of plans as prospective, there is no reason to think that existing uses that interfere with “ecological integrity” would be excepted.

    That’s pretty much all of us human beings, I would think.

    Reply
    • Reference conditions do not require a specific reference period. Historic conditions would usually be used in developing reference conditions, but could be tempered by other relevant science about ability to recover from most perturbations etc.

      I agree that the vegetation or hydrological changes caused by a ski area are part of the ecological integrity equation, but not the structures themselves or the people using them. Since the concept of NRV is tied to disturbance regimes, ski areas and other human structures and uses (existing or proposed) would always be outside of NRV and never permit integrity (if they were part of the integrity equation). However, they are still relevant to species persistence and viability, and plan components may be needed to limit use or seek removal of structures (e.g. roads).

      Reply
  8. Jon, I am just reading the definition in the directives in English (my italics):

    Natural range of variation (NRV). Spatial and temporal variation in ecosystem characteristics under historic disturbance regimes during a reference period. The reference period considered should be sufficiently long to include the full range of variation produced by dominant natural disturbance regimes, often several centuries, for such disturbances as fire and flooding and should also include short-term variation and cycles in climate. “Natural range of variation” (NRV) is a term used synonymously with historic range of variation or range of natural variation. The NRV is a tool for assessing ecological integrity, and does not necessarily constitute a management target or desired condition. The NRV can help identify key structural, functional, compositional, and connectivity characteristics, for which plan components may be important for either maintenance or restoration of such ecological conditions.

    The “reference period” is described as a timeframe. In fact, where are you getting the term “reference conditions” as in “reference conditions don’t require a reference period”? I don’t see it in this definition.

    The definition says “ecosystem characteristics under historic disturbance regimes”; ecosystem characteristics include “connectivity”. Don’t human structures interfere with connectivity? Like say a ski building might interfere with toads hopping from one drainage to another?

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  9. The directives are draft, and I’m taking the position that they are wrong on this point. I would agree that HRV (historic range of variation) would require a reference period. There is a choice being made in the directives to make NRV the same as HRV. Here is what that means: the rule requires integrity, the rule defines integrity to be within NRV (NRV is in fact a target), and the directives require that NRV be historic conditions. There is no way to factor in any best science other than HRV (the directives suggest that other factors besides NRV can be considered for integrity, but the rule language doesn’t allow that). The only way I can see to avoid being required to manage for historic conditions is to define NRV differently in the directives (as sustainable reference conditions determined using best science).

    Managing for historic conditions seems to be a strange (maybe indefensible) position for the agency to take, given the recognized likelihood that the future won’t be like the past in many places due to climate disruption, and the requirement to consider best available scientific information. I could also imagine viability to require managing outside of HRV in a plan area for some ecological conditions in order to compensate for conditions outside of the plan area.

    I agree that structures could put a plan area outside of NRV for connectivity. However, I think there is some inherent flexibility in how connectivity is defined (including ‘for what’) and measured, so that a building does not necessarily change connectivity. There might be a need to restore some connectivity in some places, though, for example by adding crossing structures to highways.

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    • Jon: I am pleased to see you acknowledge that an HRV requires a reference period. That’s the big step most of these government-regulated “restoration” projects seem to step right over. The result is that most HRV print-outs are not even based on actual historical conditions!

      The reason historical documentation is needed with this stuff is: 1) provide a range of conditions that have occurred LOCALLY in the past (“it’s been done here before”); 2) provide documented insight as to how those conditions came about and/or were maintained over time (“how’d they do it?”); 3) providing a range of PROVEN options to consider when selecting “desired future conditions” for planning purposes.

      “Climate disruption” has been taking place since the beginning of life on Earth. It’s not a new thing. Meantime, Douglas-fir and three-needled pine exist all the way from Mexico to Alaska, and from the Pacific Ocean to the Rockies. In all kinds of climates. Go figure.

      (And, trust me, the so-called “Best Available Science” is NOT being performed in conjunction with HRV research. Mostly a bunch of modelers working with unstated (and often unlikely) assumptions, with a handful of “new science” (really!) to guide them. Homogenized history performed by Sims-gamers is how it usually comes out looking. And why it is so expensive and results in so many failures.

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  10. There is no requirement that ‘best available science’ be good (really). But how good or bad it is (along with things like the basis for choosing a reference period) should become part of the discussion of uncertainty in conjunction with the decision rationale.

    I’m not a climate scientist (and barely still a scientist), but what I think is unusual now (besides the likely cause) is the recent sharp break in the trend line that makes using past trends to predict the future suspect, even in relation to the ‘short’ time horizon of LMPs.

    (Thanks for rejoining this old discussion.)

    Reply
  11. I just want to be clear that “choosing a reference period” is not a “science” even the “best available science” question. It can’t be.

    Even picking a historical period is a value judgment. A value judgment by scientists is simply a value judgment (what’s most important, what should we spend tax bucks on) moved from the public into a random group of scientists.

    History should inform the public in making choices…all history, and not any particular period. But at the end of the day, what the public chooses to do or not do, should be based on their values informed by scientific, historical, legal, practitioner and local information.

    Reply

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