Agreement sets new model for managing national forests, path to recovery for threatened Mexican spotted owls

In 1993 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the Mexican spotted owl as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Photo by USFWS.

This issue has been discussed on this blog numerous times…and will certainly continued to be discussed.

SANTE FE, NEW MEXICO—WildEarth Guardians, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reached an agreement (here and here) to resolve a major legal dispute over threatened Mexican spotted owls and national forest protection in New Mexico and Arizona. A federal court issued an injunction on tree cutting on national forests in the Southwest that has been in place since September 2019. The injunction came in response to a lawsuit, originally filed in 2013 by WildEarth Guardians.

The agreement requires the U.S. Forest Service to comply with the Endangered Species Act by conducting annual Mexican spotted owl population trend monitoring through 2025, the key legal dispute at issue and the legal basis for the federal judge’s order that the agency had violated the Act.

“This agreement provides a framework for the Forest Service to better protect national forests and Mexican spotted owls,” said John Horning, Executive Director of WildEarth Guardians. “By agreeing to rigorously monitor species and track habitats, this management framework could be a national model for the Forest Service to protect and recover threatened and endangered species.”

The agreement also contemplates that the Forest Service will comply with the requirements of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s spotted owl recovery plan by identifying and protecting owls by surveying for owls prior to ground-disturbing activities and protecting those areas where owls are found and tracking long-term trends in the owl’s habitat. The agreement also establishes a Mexican spotted owl leadership forum, something the agency recently created. The agreement applies to all 11 national forests in Arizona and New Mexico, which cover over 20 million acres.

“WildEarth Guardians has tenaciously fought to protect the Mexican spotted owl and its ancient forest habitat since the mid-1990s, when the species was first recognized as threatened,” said Steve Sugarman, a Guardians founder and the attorney who litigated the case on behalf of WildEarth Guardians. “Hopefully, the comprehensive management framework contemplated by the agreement reached by Guardians and the Forest Service in this case will end the cycle of forest mismanagement and ensuing litigation.”

The agreement to end this litigation on the basis of a mutually agreed to management framework concludes the latest chapter in a 25-year saga over the management of Mexican spotted owls on national forests in the Southwest. During that period, beginning in 1996, the courts have sided with Guardians multiple times in its legal advocacy to assure that the Forest Service accounts for old-growth dependent species in its approach to national forest management in Arizona and New Mexico.

The agreement further requires the Forest Service to assess the effects of timber management activities such as logging, thinning, and prescribed burning on the owls and their habitat. The Forest Service will then use its monitoring data and assessments of effects, along with up-to-date scientific studies, to inform, constrain, and modify ongoing and future timber management in owl habitat.

“We have long contended that the Forest Service’s claims that logging is good for owls is not based on sound science,” stated Judi Brawer, WildEarth Guardians’ Wild Places Program Director. “This agreement requires the agency to finally assess the impacts of its timber management actions and adjust those actions accordingly to ensure that they do not harm the owls or their habitat.”

The parties negotiated the agreement over a six-month period and the ultimate product reflects the efforts of all of the parties to create a new paradigm for forest protection that will ensure that the agency funds, creates, and abides by the latest and best available science.

“The agreement’s greatest significance is that it brings citizens, science, and the law together in the way that the framers of environmental laws intended,” stated Horning “The foundational principle of environmental laws is that citizens uphold the laws. This is the core principle of healthy, functioning, and effective democracy, and one that is currently under direct threat.”

Background: WildEarth Guardians filed the case in March 12, 2013 over the agencies’ failure to ensure the recovery of the owl by collecting basic information, for more than 20 years, about the status of owl populations across the Southwest. In September 2019, a federal district court judge in Arizona ruled that the agencies have shirked their responsibilities to ensure that Forest Service management activities are making progress towards recovery of the Mexican spotted owl. The ruling halted all “timber management actions” on six national forests in New Mexico and Arizona, including all the national forests in New Mexico and the Tonto National Forest in Arizona.

As the September 2019 decision explains, the Forest Service was required to implement a population monitoring protocol for Mexican spotted owl since at least 1996. It was expected that, within 10-15 years, management activities such as logging and prescribed burning that the agencies claimed would improve owl habitat, supported by monitoring that would show the species recovery, would enable its de-listing from the Endangered Species Act. Yet, as the decision stated, “Over twenty years later, delisting has not occurred, and information about the current [Mexican spotted owl] population is still minimal.”

11 thoughts on “Agreement sets new model for managing national forests, path to recovery for threatened Mexican spotted owls”

  1. So, no logging and no controlled burning, all in the name of protecting an owl. I guess these environmental groups really would rather see the whole Forest burn down, as has been happening this year. I thought Wild Earth Guardians was finally starting to see controlled burns as a good thing? Is that not so?

    Reply
    • Q: “Is that not so?”

      A: That is not so, Patrick.

      WildEarth Guardians supports the reintroduction of fire into fire-adapted forests and ecosystems, whether it’s through science-based prescribed burns or letting natural fires burn. In fact, we worked together with the U.S. Forest Service last fall to modify this court injunction in the Mexican spotted owl case to exempt prescribed burning projects from the judge’s injunction.

      We do have concerns that the Santa Fe National Forest, for example, is doing prescribed burns too frequently in the same places (i.e., every 2-5 years or so) which is contradictory to the fire frequency in those areas. However, it’s incorrect to assert that WildEarth Guardians is opposed to prescribed/controlled burns under all circumstances. Thanks.

      Reply
      • Where is the Santa Fe National Forest burning at a 2 year fire return interval? I just reviewed all projects that they have reported in the USFS FACTS database and didn’t find anywhere on the Forest that was burned with shorter than a 8 year fire return interval.

        Reply
        • It would be good to know, because I’m sure forests who want to burn but don’t have the budget would be very interested in acquiring those funds..

          Reply
        • Hi Patrick F: I was provided incorrect information.

          The USFS would like to do prescribed burns over large sections of the SFNF, ideally, every 5-15 years. They believe the historical fire rotation in this area was 5-15 years. That is the prescribed burn frequency proposed for the Santa Fe Mountains Landscape Resiliency Project. It’s in the Scoping Document: http://theforestadvocate.org/wp-content/uploads/SFMLRP-Scoping-Document.pdf

          That is much too frequent burning and leaves barren and ecologically dysfunctional forest landscape. The understory is never allowed to substantially regrow. As I previously stated, we do have concerns that the Santa Fe National Forest, for example, is doing prescribed burns too frequently in the same places. Thanks.

          Reply
  2. SF area thinning and burning treatments are pretty impressive, actually. Aside from actually stopping a local fire this year, there’s been good attention to nuance. Good patterns, horizontal and vertical heterogeneity (including leaving dense refuge areas), standing and downed snags, future snag recruitment, etc.

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  3. A couple of thoughts on this…
    “The agreement’s greatest significance is that it brings citizens, science, and the law together in the way that the framers of environmental laws intended,” stated Horning “The foundational principle of environmental laws is that citizens uphold the laws. This is the core principle of healthy, functioning, and effective democracy, and one that is currently under direct threat.”

    It doesn’t really sound very open to me.. it was an agreement with the FWS, the FS and CBD. What about the public that is not part of CBD? What other (nongovernmental) groups sit on the MSO leadership forum?

    It seems to me that there are two ways of finding info. One is to look at habitat, the other at populations. As we have seen in some places, there can been losses in old growth owl habitat due to wildfires. If populations go down, there could be many other causes than vegetation management (say, climate change). For me, it would be better information to use a designed experiment rather than monitoring to find the impacts of different veg treatments and PB.

    And have fuel treatments around the experiments so that the long-term data collection on these interventions and responses could occur without wildfire messing it up.. oh, wait.

    Reply
  4. The major change in actual management I see is an agreement to find and protect owls found outside of designated areas. The public would have an opportunity to participate in planning leading to the actual project decisions. However, to the extent that this is considered binding direction to all project planners, I would expect that to be adopted through a public forest plan amendment process (with limited NEPA effects because it would be adopting mitigation measures to protect the environment from impacts).

    The letter with FS “commitments” is fairly detailed with regard to the design of the monitoring and assessment program. Such as:
    “The Forest Service plans to work in collaboration with FWS to develop and implement rigorous and quality controlled management experiments (as defined on p. 385 and as described in Box C.5, pp. 282-283, Recovery Plan) to determine the effects of (a) mechanical treatments within Recovery Habitat but outside of PAC core areas on owls and owl habitat and (b) prescribed fire treatments within Recovery Habitat on owls and owl habitat. In these management experiment PACs, FWS and Forest Service intend to monitor owls to determine occupancy and monitor key habitat components (i.e., large tree density, snags, logs, etc.) to determine changes pre- and post-treatment.”

    Reply
  5. Here’s an interesting comment attributed to Matt Allen, owner of Mount Taylor Manufacturing: “Allen said if WildEarth Guardians had notified companies such as his of their grievances about lack of owl monitoring, those companies could’ve pressured the Forest Service into complying so a judge wouldn’t have had to shut down the forests.” I could see some alignment of interests like this in cases where the problem is lack of funding or priorities for its use. https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/deal-in-owl-case-would-lift-forest-bans-in-new-mexico-arizona/article_eada06a0-187a-11eb-b138-e70fb01d43a1.html

    Reply

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