As I’ve been reviewing some of this information, and recent news and interviews, I’ve been thinking about “What does the Forest Service want to be?” “And how best to organize to carry that out? And what kind of people should be in-house, and what kind of activities and expertise housed in “public-private partnerships (for profit) “, big not-for-profits (e.g.,American Forests or NFF), contractors, State and Tribal partners, or concessionaires, local friends’ not- for- profits? What we’ve noticed in the last couple of years is farming out expertise to big not-for-profits who do their own contracting and hiring. If that’s the wave of the future, then the FS needs more partnership coordinators and grants and agreements people, and fewer resource experts (keepers of scientific and practitioner knowledge).
But then there’s the idea of moving wildfire folks to Interior, which would require rethinking everything remaining.
But before “farming out work to NGO’s” was a twinkle in someone’s eye (2019) , NAFSR did a comprehensive study on changes in the workforce -in another direction.
Here’s a link to the study. I’m going to summarize the key points relevant to today’s workforce discussions.
If you look at this table, you can understand why employment might have dropped off since 1990 or so. It took a great many folks to do the work for that size of a timber program
Then there’s the increase in wildfire personnel compared to other folks:
Now I don’t think that folks will find the wildfire part surprising, but the botanist numbers certainly stick out. Of course, we don’t have those numbers available for today.
What did the NAFSR report make of all this?
Implementation of the National Fire Plan in 2001 facilitated a massive change in the overall composition of the agency’s workforce.
According to statistics provided by the Forest Service, the number of fire personnel has risen 132 percent since 1992. At the same time, the ranks of specialists needed to support restoration
projects–including prescribed fire and silvicultural treatments– decreased by 54 percent.Over the past years the agency has repeatedly stated its intent to accelerate the pace and scale of restoration on national forest lands to improve forest health. Recently, this goal was codified in the December 21, 2018 Executive Order 13855 entitled “Promoting Active Management of America’s Forests, Rangelands, and Other Federal Lands to Improve Conditions and Reduce Wildfire Risk.” After analyzing Forest Service workforce trends, NAFSR has concluded these initiatives simply cannot succeed without a major change in the workforce composition
For those who prefer quantitative analysis, this table provides the actual numbers and percentages associated with the change in workforce composition over the last 26 years. The most dramatic reductions in personnel have occurred in the disciplines of forestry and engineering. These skills must be restored if the agency is going to meet established restoration goals.
NAFSR understands that workforce composition should change over time as agency priorities change.
Workforce numbers will also fluctuate with changing budgets and unit configurations, and as efficiencies are gained through the development and use of new technologies. A change this dramatic, however, demands the immediate attention of agency leadership.
Next post: NAFSR Report, Field Interviews with Employees.
Farming out work to NGOs does not necessarily mean fewer in-house (FS) specialists. Those agreements need to be monitored, much like a contract needs to be monitored, so while partnership coordinators and G&A folks are important, someone needs to make sure that the technical work that the NGOs are doing meets FS needs and complies with federal (and Forest Service) law and policy. There are many examples of work on the ground going awry with smaller agreements with local non-profits without oversight and I am sure there are or will be some examples of the same thing with the larger NGOs.