Accountability

Colt Summit Update: FS Confirms Restoration Work Under Contract

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The Colt Summit project area is located in the upper-center portion by the "83" and bend in the road. The surrounding area (including the portions of the Lolo National Forest, State DNRC lands and private lands) have been heavily logged and roaded, significantly compromising critical habitat for lynx, grizzly bears, bull trout and other critters.

Much ado is being made about the Colt Summit logging and restoration project on the Lolo National Forest.  In fact, last week The Wilderness Society, Montana Wilderness Association, National Wildlife Federation and Yaak Valley Forest Council joined with the Montana Logging Association, Montana Wood Products Association and others to actually file a “friend of the court” brief in support of this logging project.

Asking around, this appears to be the first time that conservation groups like The Wilderness Society, Montana Wilderness Association and National Wildlife Federation have filed a brief to support a logging project.  Reading the rhetoric-filed, dooms-day press releases from these folks, you can’t help but get the impression that the Lolo National Forest must be under siege from timber sale lawsuits.

However, the facts tell a much different story.

Lolo National Forest officials confirm that the Lolo National Forest hasn’t faced a new timber sale lawsuit in over 5 years. In fact, between FY 2005 and FY 2010, the Lolo National Forest had at least 99 active timber sales.

Another impression one gets from reading press releases and statements from these groups is that the Colt Summit lawsuit has halted the positive road decommissioning and culvert upgrade work. In fact, the Montana Wilderness Association even has gone so far as to tell their members and supporters via Facebook that what’s “at stake” with the Colt Summit project is the road decommissioning/culvert work.

[Update: An hour after this article was posted, Montana Wilderness Association staffers removed these (here, here) substantive comments from their Facebook posts about the Colt Summit timber sale. Such tactics have been a very common practice by these groups as they attempt to stifle debate and prevent the open exchange of substantive information.]

Perhaps the people at Montana Wilderness Association should have more carefully read the plaintiffs summary judgment brief in this case:

“CONCLUSION
Wherefore, Plaintiffs respectfully request this Court grant their motion for summary judgment, declare the Forest Service violated the law, and enjoin the Forest Service from approving and/or authorizing work on the Colt Summit project (excluding the road decommissioning and culvert removal work) pending full compliance with the law.”

Perhaps the staffers at Montana Wilderness Association should have remembered that last September, the Lolo National Forest issued this press release, very clearly (and somewhat ironically) titled “Colt Summit Restoration Contracts Awarded.”

In fact, below I will re-print an update about the status of the Colt Summit road decommissioning and culvert upgrade work I obtained over the past few days from the Boyd Hartwig, the Lolo National Forest’s very own Public Affairs Officer. Boyd’s generally been pretty good about responding to pubic information requests and as anyone can clearly see, the Lolo National Forest confirms that the following restoration work has been under contract since last September, is moving forward and is not impacted by the lawsuit.

1.  Colt Creek Road Decommissioning will decommission about 6 miles of Colt Creek Road #646.

2.  Colt Creek Road Rehabilitation will reconstruct an existing road to BMP standards and add a short section of newly- constructed road.  This route will replace access currently provided by road #646.  It’s important to note that the short piece of new construction is not being funded through CFLR.

3.  Colt Creek Culvert Replacement project will replace an undersized culvert with a new structure that provides for aquatic organism passage.

So there you have it folks. A pretty good, verified example of how much of the rhetoric and the “story-line” coming from these “collaborator” organizations and their timber industry “partners” isn’t really matching up too great with the reality of the situation on the ground, or in the courtroom. I believe there are a number of reasons for this, and perhaps in coming days I will get an opportunity to explore them further on this blog. However, suffice to say, it shouldn’t be lost on anyone that what we’re seeing with the Colt Summit timber sale PR blitz from these “collaborators” is really just a continuation and/or extension of the campaign to support Senator Tester’s mandated logging bill, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. The players, political campaign type tactics/rhetoric and the intentional spreading of false information about these public lands issues is virtually identical.

From: Matthew Koehler
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2012 12:47 PM

Hello Boyd:

Can you please tell if this work [Lolo NF Press Release, September 30, 2011] is on-going or finished? Also, can you let me know details of all the work currently being done, or under contract, in the Colt Summit project area? Thank you. – Matthew

—————–

From: Boyd Hartwig

Matthew, all three projects are awarded.  No ground disturbing activity has occurred to date.  Ground-based activity could begin as early as July 1, 2012.  Instream work associated with the culvert replacement project must occur between July 15 and Sept. 1.  The decommissioning work cannot be done until alternative access is provided through the Colt Creek Road Rehab project.

Boyd Hartwig
Public Affairs Officer
Lolo National Forest

——————
From: Matthew Koehler
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2012 12:38

Hello Boyd:

Thanks so much for the info. Just so I have it correctly can you please confirm the following:

1) The name of these three projects awarded, or at least what work is included in this

2) That the lawsuit filed on Colt Summit hasn’t stopped these three projects from moving forward.

Thanks so much,
Matthew Koehler

———————-

Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2012
From: Hartwig, Boyd C -FS
To: Matthew Koehler <[email protected]>

Matthew, here are the listed projects:

1.       Colt Creek Road Decommissioning will decommission about 6 miles of Colt Creek Road #646.

2.       Colt Creek Road Rehabilitation will reconstruct an existing road to BMP standards and add a short section of newly- constructed road.  This route will replace access currently provided by road #646.  It’s important to note that the short piece of new construction is not being funded through CFLR.

3.       Colt Creek Culvert Replacement project will replace an undersized culvert with a new structure that provides for aquatic organism passage.

All three projects are awarded but no ground disturbing activity has occurred to date.  Instream work associated with the culvert replacement project must occur between July 15 and Sept. 1.  The decommissioning work cannot be done until alternative access is provided through the Colt Creek Road Rehab project.

Regarding start dates,  they are hoping to begin work this spring, that’s correct. They are aware of the lawsuit but as you know there is no injunction on the planned work.

Boyd Hartwig
Public Affairs Officer
Lolo National Forest

More Details on Colt Summit and ‘Collaboration’

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The Colt Summit project area is located in the upper-center portion by the "83" and bend in the road. The surrounding area (including the portions of the Lolo National Forest and private lands) have been heavily logged and roaded, significantly compromising critical habitat for lynx, grizzly bears, bull trout and other critters.

Thanks to Sharon for her most-recent post (below) on the Colt Summit timber sale project on the Lolo National Forest.  Here is a link to the AP article, which takes a more balanced look at the project, the lawsuit and the “friend of the court” briefs filed this week.

As the AP article indicates, my organization, the WildWest Institute, filed a brief in support of the plaintiffs (Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Wild Swan, Montana Ecosystem Defense Council and Native Ecosystems Council, all represented by the Western Environmental Law Center).

Our brief questions some of the claims made by the collaborators regarding the relationship of this Colt Summit logging project to the Southwestern Crown of the Continent (SWCC) ‘collaborative’ group.  We also question key aspects of the very nature of the SWCC ‘collaborative’ since the Forest Service and The Wilderness Society currently make up 43% of the voting block of the “collaborative.”

Yes, that’s right, unlike any other national forest ‘collaborative’ group that we know about in the country, the SWCC ‘collaborative’ allows Forest Service officials to be voting members.   Currently 7 of the 28 voting members of the SWCC ‘collaborative’ are Forest Service employees.

Also, the co-chair of the entire SWCC ‘collaborative’ for the past two years has been the Forest Service Supervisor of the Lolo National Forest.  Again, to our knowledge, this is something that isn’t done in any other national forest ‘collaborative’ around the country.  Ironically, a few weeks ago, the SWCC Charter was amended to remove the Forest Service from being able to co-chair the ‘collaborative;’ however, the SWCC ‘collaborative’ still allows Forest Service employees to be members and to vote as part of the ‘collaborative.’

Another issue to keep in mind is how the SWCC’s scheduling of meetings favors ‘collaborators’ who get paid to be part of the SWCC. Normal citizens, or organizations with limited resources, often cannot afford to attend mid-day, mid-week meetings at various locations around western Montana.  This is from our brief:

“SWCC’s scheduled meetings are always held on the third Tuesday of the month, currently from 1 pm to 4 pm. However, during the period [WildWest Institute] was a member of the SWCC, the meetings ran from 9 am to 4pm. Additionally, according the SWCC website, [SWCC’s] Prioritization Committee meets from 10 am to 2pm on various weekdays at the Seeley Lake Ranger District, north of Seeley Lake and [SWCC’s] Monitoring Committee meets from 1pm to 4pm on various weekdays, also at the Seeley Lake Ranger District office.

The fact that these meetings are held during the middle of the day, on a weekday makes it difficult for members and the general public to attend these meetings. Those individuals who have full time jobs not directly tied to national forest management must take time off work. Those who don’t live in the Seeley Swan area must also travel to and from the meetings, sometimes at great distance and cost. Forest Service employees, however, attend these meetings as a part of their position. Wilderness Society employees also attend these meetings as part of their full time jobs.  Taking days off work and traveling is not an issue for them because their attendance is a part of their job.

Furthermore, inability to make the meetings is penalized. Missing three consecutive meetings can result in an individual being stripped of their voting rights. See Id at R-5:68131. Therefore, the meeting schedule itself seems to give unfair favoritism towards those members who attend these meetings as a part of their full time job.”

No matter what the “feel-good” rhetoric is, the fact of the matter is that the Forest Service didn’t do a great job on their NEPA analysis for this project and there are some real concerns with this project and the process used to put it together.   For example, the Forest Service contracted the Finding Of No Signification Impact (FONSI) prior to completing the Environmental Assessment.  Here’s a snip about that from our brief [emphasis added]:

“…in a discussion of the upcoming EA, IDT meeting notes, dated April 27, 2010, state “The forest [service] has designed the project to have no significant issues so that a finding of no significant impact (FONSI) can be written after the environmental analysis (EA).” Colt Summit Restoration and Fuel Reduction EA, IDT Meeting Notes, I-8:926.  Document I-9 of the administrative record contains the above quotation, then furthers that idea by stating, “EA should already have reached conclusions on significance. Write from that point and perspective, providing support and evidence for no significance.” I-9:939. The following three pages basically provide a mini-seminar on how to persuasively say that the actions of the Forest Service have so significant impact on the environment.  See I-9:940-942.”

Here are some other issues to ponder.  While the ‘collaborators’ (lead by The Wilderness Society) sent out a media advisory worthy of a blockbuster Hollywood movie trailer (using words such as “targeted” “attacked” “bury it forever” “blowback” and “Ideological rift”), the simple fact of the matter is that the Lolo National Forest hasn’t faced a timber sale lawsuit in over 5 years and there have been 99 active timber sales on the Lolo National Forest between 2005 and 2010.

The ‘collaborators’ are claiming that the plaintiffs didn’t participate in the up-front planning for this project, which is a lie and completely untrue.  In fact, the actual public record for this timber sale actually reflects a higher level of involvement from the plaintiffs (Alliance for Wild Rockies/Friends of Wild Swan) than from some of the ‘collaborators.’ Indeed, plaintiffs attended all meetings, all field trips and submitted extensive, detailed and substantive comments during the entire NEPA process.

Finally, from the plaintiffs briefs, here are some details about the Colt Summit Timber Sale:

• 2,038 acre logging project in lynx critical habitat and MS1 habitat for grizzlies

• logging will occur in old growth and mature forest stands;

• logging will remove the dense horizontal cover in forest stands that is so important for lynx foraging and denning

• “vista” cuts to open views of the swan mountains for motorized users are part of the project

• technically, project is in WUI (as per the Seeley fire plan) but it’s 10+ miles from the nearest community

• project is in the important Summit Divide wildlife corridor – the best place for lynx and griz to cross H83 as they travel between the Bob Marshall Wilderness and Mission Mountain Wilderness

• logging is proposed in a number of wetland areas

• Forest Service shrunk the INFISH buffers (designed to protect native trout species, including bull trout) to accommodate project.

UPDATE Feb 29, 4:15 pm: Thanks to Larry H for finding the google map link of the Colt Summit project area (see comments section). I just added a photo to this post, which is a view of the Colt Summit project area (roughly upper center by the 83 and bend in road), which also includes an expanded view about 8 miles in any direction from the project area.  As anyone can see, the majority of the area around Colt Summit has been very heavily logged and roaded.

National Park Foundation spend more on itself than on Parks

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(This press release was sent out today by PEER, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. – mk)

One in Three Dollars Reaches Parks; Rest Goes to Overhead and Corporate Support

Washington, DC — Most individual gifts to the official fundraising arm for the National Park Service never reach the parks themselves, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).  Personal contributions to the National Park Foundation are far more likely to be absorbed by overhead, fundraising expenses or the care and feeding of corporate donors.

The National Park Foundation (NPF) is a congressionally-chartered tax-exempt corporation designated to accept and administer gifts for the benefit of the National Park Service so as “to further the conservation or natural, scenic, historic, scientific, educational, inspirational, or recreational resources for future generations of Americans,” in the words of its enabling statute (16 U.S.C. § 19e).  That status also excuses it from detailed reporting requirements imposed on other charities.

In Fiscal Year 2011, the latest reported year, less than one-third of NPF expenditures are grants to parks ($4.5 million).  A greater amount ($4.7 million) went for fundraising and administrative expenses.  Another $.5 million was spent on “program support” – a nebulous category that ranges from promotional materials for corporate donors to the hotel bar bill following the National Christmas Tree Lighting.

The FY 11 numbers were a sharp drop-off from FY 10 park grants but resemble the lopsided overhead pattern in FY 09.  Even these figures are inflated, however, as many of the grant dollars listed in its Annual Report come from “accept and administer” projects where NPF only acts as the fiscal agent.  It also counts the sizeable Flight 93 Memorial Campaign, which has its own governing board and does its own fundraising.

“Giving to the National Park Foundation is like trying to support a university by endowing its fraternity,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that the rule-of-thumb for responsible charities is that 75% of every dollar raised should go directly to the program, not overhead.  “People who want to support national parks should look first to local park-specific ‘friends’ groups.”

NPF raises the bulk of its funds by concentrating on a handful of large corporate donors, many of whose gifts are restricted to activities tied to corporate marketing and campaigns.  NPF works to assure that corporate donors get a return on their investments by delivering marketing support and promotional perks such as “special visitation opportunities” for executives and key customers or “in-park activities including tours, events and interpretation” (quoting from Coca Cola “Proud Partner Sponsorship Agreement” with NPF and the Park Service).

A major plank of the National Park Service strategic plan for its 2016 centennial calls for creation of a billion dollar corporate-financed endowment through NPF to be administered outside the federal appropriation process.  The plan makes no provision for guarding against corporate contributors using big donations to leverage access or influence over park policy, such as the recent role of Coca Cola in blocking bans on sales of plastic water bottles inside national parks.

“There is no real accountability or transparency in the National Park Foundation,” Ruch added, pointing out that NPF does not believe it is subject to the Freedom of Information Act but surrendered documents PEER requested to settle a FOIA lawsuit PEER filed against it. “Part of the problem is that the National Park Foundation sees itself as a private corporation without obligation to the public.”

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Look at the FY 2011 NPF Annual Report (budget on last page)

See “Program Support” status for Christmas Tree Lighting expenses

Examine the Coca Cola “Proud Partner” agreement

Examine Call for Billion Dollar NPF Corporate Fund (Step # 29)

Revisit Coke role in suspending Grand Canyon plastic bottle ban

Utah’s Sagebrush Rebellion Awakens

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In September Char Miller didn’t give much credit to what he called Rob Bishop’s “Sputtering Sagebrush Rebellion“, [KCET’s “The Back Forty”, 09/21/2011]. Miller suggested that the rebellion might backfire in two ways, first by challenging President Obama to follow Bill Clinton’s lead by either invoking the Antiquities Act to establish yet-another national monument at the end of his term of office, or by helping to rally voters in favor of retaining both the public lands in federal ownership and Obama in the White House come November. But Utah’s Governor Hebert and Utah’s predominantly Republican legislators seem intent on pursuing this “Sagebrush Rebellion” at least as election-year politics, and maybe as a means to gain traction in the upcoming battle over federal education dollars in what we’ve called the “Secure Rural Schools” or “County Payments” debate that will heat up this summer. [Note: Rob Bishop is Chair of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands, US House of Representatives.] A little more on the issue:

(From Ogden Standard-Examiner, Showdown Looms over Utah’s Public Lands, [02/27/2012])

There are four bills now in front of the Utah House of Representatives that form the basis of a legal challenge to the federal government’s right to control approximately two-thirds of the land in the state. The bills invoke promises dating back to when Utah gained statehood in 1896.

One resolution, sponsored by Rep. Roger Barrus, R-Centerville, calls for the federal government to turn over control of the land to the state by Dec. 31, 2014. …

To gain statehood, the Utah Enabling Act contained language stipulating that, as federal lands were transferred to the state, where they could then generate tax revenue, 5 percent of the funds would go to a trust fund for education. Most of the land has never left federal hands, and subsequently, the revenue stream has never developed. A number of officials claim that is why Utah ranks near the bottom of per-pupil funding.
U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, says the land debate raises big constitutional issues. He cites notes from the Constitutional Convention of 1787, in which Elbridge Gerry, a delegate from Massachusetts who would become the fifth vice president of the U.S., worried that federal control of land within a state would allow the federal government to force states to give “humble obedience” to the government.

“That concern 225 years ago still remains today. If you give too much land to the federal government, and let them hold it, and let them declare it (tax) exempt, you have a problem,” Lee said. He said Utah students and teachers deserve the revenue the land should be generating. Lee said Utahns also deserve the right to be on equal footing with other states that have few federal land holdings within their borders.

U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, estimated in 2011 the revenue the state could generate by being able to impose a small tax on federal land holdings. He suggested that placing a fair tax on those properties, if they are not returned to the private sector, could provide a financial boon to education. He said even sagebrush property taxed at its lowest rate could potentially generate $116 million a year for the state. …

He said the land-use paradigms at the federal level change about every 40 or 50 years. He said it has been almost 50 years since the last change, and he thinks the Legislature’s efforts could be very timely.

“It is time, it is ripe for that discussion,” Bishop said.

[Rep. Roger Barrus, R-Centerville] said he and other lawmakers are prepared for a drawn-out dispute with the federal government. He expects neighboring states, including Idaho, Montana, Arizona and Nevada, to join the fray as well. He said the federal government has just not kept its promises. He likened the problem to the issue facing early colonists in America who had a feudal landlord in Great Britain.

[Update: March 23] Utah Governor Signs Bill Demanding Federal Lands

Gov. Gary Herbert signed a bill Friday that demands the federal government relinquish control of public lands in Utah by 2014, setting the table for a potential legal battle over millions of acres in the state. …

What do They Really Want?
While working up this post I ran into an expose of the late-1970s—early-1980s Sagebrush Rebellion, by Frank J. Popper titled “A Timely End of the Sagebrush Rebellion” (pdf), National Affairs 76, Summer 1984. Popper suggests that in the end the “Rebels” may have won a victory from what seemed to many a loss, in part by opening up the process of slowly selling some of the federal lands. It’s a point to ponder, when trying to figure out today’s Rebels want as they prepare for “a drawn-out dispute with the federal government” for control of lands they probably don’t really want—if they stop to think about it. To Popper:

The Sagebrush Rebellion did not fail—it ended because it achieved many of its goals. The Reagan administration rapidly found clever, politically appealing ways to start to transfer some public lands without having to ask Congress for new legislation. Watt’s Interior Department undertook a “good neighbor policy” that allowed state and local governments to request the department’s “surplus” lands. The initiative was soon broadened to an Asset Management Program whereby all federal agencies could sell their excess land in the West and elsewhere; the eventual sale of 35 million acres–an area the size of Iowa–was expected. Separately, the Forest Service prepared to sell up to 17 million acres. The federal land agencies sped up the transfers to Alaska’s state government and Native Americans authorized by the 1958 Statehood Act, the 1971 Native Claims Settlement Act, and the 1980 National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The BLM experimentally revived homesteading in the Kuskokwim Mountains in central Alaska. Numerous federal-Western state land exchanges were in exploratory stages, and seemed most advanced in Utah. [p. 68]

A McKenzie Bridge logging plan takes neighbors by surprise

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(The following article appeared in today’s Eugene Register-Guard. – mk)

McKENZIE BRIDGE — Jerry Gil­mour is able to escape from Bend most weekends and drive over the Santiam Pass to his wooded retreat, a cabin he built on a 4-acre swath of pristine land bordering the Willamette National Forest.

 A few weeks back, Gilmour drove up the narrow road off Highway 126 that leads to his property in the small community of McKenzie Bridge, fired up the 100-year-old wood stove that once burned trash in a locomotive and took his yellow Labrador retriever, Kona, for a walk. It’s a routine.

But on this trip, as Gilmour trudged past his favorite old maple tree and through the woods on the edge of his property, something was different. Stapled to the trees were bright blue signs, bright orange markers, and flags dangling from the branches.

“Boundary cutting unit,” the signs read. The author: the U.S. Forest Service. The telltale markers of a soon-to-commence logging operation.

Gilmour was surprised, but as a part-time resident, he figured maybe he’d just been out of the loop. He did some investigating on the Internet and found the description and documents relating to the Goose Project, a 2,134-acre timber sale that will produce 38 million board feet of lumber, enough to fill 7,000 log trucks.

Then Gilmour drove to Edgar Exum and Claudette Aras’ house, which rises from a meadow in the shadow of Lookout Ridge on 20 acres that also border the national forest. Had they heard about the Goose Project? They hadn’t. Nor had any of the neighbors they wound up asking. Not even the publisher of the local newspaper, the McKenzie River Reflections, had heard about it.

Eventually, Gilmour and the Exums learned that a couple of conservation groups, Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wildlands, knew about the project, which the Forest Service had approved in 2010. The groups had appealed the sale, arguing that the agency failed to adequately describe how it would protect the 956 acres of spotted owl habitat in the area. The appeal was denied, the project approved, the 45-day window for public comment closed.

Which means Gilmour and his neighbors have no recourse for weighing in on a substantial logging operation that is literally in their backyards. No recourse to file an appeal or a lawsuit, because they didn’t comment on it in the first place. They can only watch and wait, for the buzz of chainsaw and the whir of helicopters to arrive and start plucking trees out of the forest, one by one.

Except, watching and waiting is not in these neighbors’ DNA. They’ve embarked on what may be a quixotic quest to persuade the Forest Service to stop the Goose Project, gather public input, answer questions from people in McKenzie Bridge and consider changes to the operation.

“They just didn’t tell us,” Edgar Exum said. “That’s my major objection.”

Added Aras: “Burying it in the legal notices is not notification. It just isn’t.”

The Forest Service has no obligation to listen. The agency published a notice of the proposed timber sale in the small print of The Register-­Guard’s classified ad section in 2010, and the 45-day public comment period that followed has expired. But Terry Baker, the McKenzie River District ranger, who was not in that post in 2010, said he’s come to a conclusion that may surprise Gilmour and his neighbors:

“As a district, we dropped the ball on contacting some of the adjacent landowners and community members about the project,” he said.

In addition to the legal notice, the district did contact a few community leaders and held a field trip before finishing the project design, Baker said. That resulted in some changes, among them an agreement that no trees greater than 36 inches in diameter will be cut within 350 feet of a private residence. But the Forest Service could have done better, Baker said. What he would have done is study a map of the property and contact all property owners within a quarter-mile of the project, mailing out notices to all involved and inviting them to participate in the discussion, he said.

While he can’t turn back time, Baker said he’s looking at holding a public meeting in the next few weeks and talking with landowners between now and then to discuss their concerns. He also intends to set up a “community monitoring group” that will keep tabs on the project as it develops and provide feedback that could be used to make changes as it progresses or be taken into consideration on future jobs.

Whether any of that will address the residents’ specific concerns depends on how talks with the Forest Service play out in the coming weeks. The first of five sales of timber closed on Thursday, and it’s unlikely that even a renewed effort to gather input would result in major changes to the project.

Still, “If there are site-specific concerns landowners have, I’m willing to work with them,” Baker said. “There’s going to be a threshold. I’m not sure what it is yet.”

Some of the neighbors’ concerns have already been addressed by the Forest Service in its response to the two conservation groups’ appeal of the project.

Doug Heiken, conservation and restoration coordinator for Oregon Wild, said the Forest Service should have chosen an alternative that avoids logging in mature forests and in riparian areas and that cuts back on the 7.7 miles of temporary roads that will be built to support the project. Beyond that, he said, the 965 acres of spotted owl habitat should have prompted the agency to conduct an Environmental Impact Statement, a more detailed analysis than what the Forest Service did, which was an Environmental Assessment.

“We shouldn’t be logging mature forests in riparian reserves,” Heiken said.

Most of the project involves thinning young planted stands, which is good for fire suppression and wildlife foraging, Heiken said. In fact, Baker says those are among the key reasons the project is happening in the first place: to improve the forest and reduce hazard fuel levels, along with supplying local communities with sustainably harvested timber.

But some residents in McKenzie Bridge question the Goose Project’s 322 acres of “gap” cutting, which they say is a euphemism for clear-cuts, which could result in scars to an otherwise lush forest.

“That ridge is going to resemble a checkerboard in 20 years,” Edgar Exum said.

Baker said the gap cutting on the project is designed to help species from butterfly to elk to ground squirrels who do better in the brushes and shrubs that comprise “early seral habitat,” areas that exist before conifer trees begin to block out the light. As for riparian reserves, that part of the effort is aimed at improving riparian reserves by doing thinning that could allow larger trees to flourish, he said. And the decision to go with an Environmental Assessment was based on consultations with other agencies that resulted in a conclusion that no endangered species would be harmed by the project.

What bothers Gilmour, Exum, Aras and others is that they never got a chance to ask their questions, raise their concerns and have them answered directly. They see good things about the Goose Project, too, but they want more input, information and involvement.

“People around here ought to have known the answers to these questions,” Gilmour said.

Illegal ‘Adventure Pass’: What were they thinking?

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The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently overturned a lower court’s ruling, declaring that the Forest Service’s Adventure Pass violated the Recreation Enhancement Act (pdf). What I wonder is how the Forest Service thought that the Adventure Pass could pass a ‘red face test’ both in public and in the courts? Moreover, how did their USDA Office of General Counsel legal advisers feel that they could pass that red face test?

Is this yet another example of the Forest Service pushing forward with an initiative without much regard for the law, with both ‘professional arrogance’ and ‘budget protection/maximization’ motivations as backdrop? Finally, where does the Forest Service go from here?

In my book, given the austerity that the American people now face, and will face more squarely in the future, I think it time to talk seriously about what ought the Forest Service to manage for and at what cost, both in terms of direct cost to the US taxpayer and in terms of environmental costs. For me there are plenty of programs to prune, both within what the agency calls recreation and elsewhere. I believe it past time to take a careful look at Forest Service cash flows, sources and uses. Let’s then try to figure out what more and what less to do, and what to do differently.

A Flashback
Fee Demo and Adventure pass discussions are not new to the Forest Service. The Forest Service had a chance to respond to critics of both way back in 1999-2000 on Eco-Watch [Note this link provides a flat file readout of a forum that was largely devoted to fee demo discussion/criticism]. The Forest Service chose to be silent, just as they did with the recent forest planning rulemaking process. See, e.g my Earth to Forest Planning: Get a Blog. In 1999 I could understand their silence, their reluctance to engage in social media discussion. Social Media was brand new and the Forest Service was toying with it.I no longer have patience with their reluctance to engage.

Evidently the Congress did listen, passing the Recreation Enhancement Act in 2004,to replace the Recreation Fee Demo Program of 1994. But the Forest Service somehow thought that it could evade the clear language of the latter Act.

My question is broader than to allege that the Forest Service routinely ignores the Congress and the Courts. My question is, When will the Forest Service engage in public discourse, in public deliberation? And I’m not taking about the many, mostly facilitated, highly spun so-called dialogue efforts that the Forest Service too often employs. [Note: I am a champion of dialogue, when used for deep inquiry. But I’m afraid that the Forest Service is now in the process of turning “dialogue” into another “inform and involve” spin mechanism.]

Footnote on Framing, Blaming
I threw this post together in response to Sharon’s earlier post on this subject. Both posts are examples of what I call The Frame Game and The Blame Game. Sharon’s post frames this as “a problem if the FS can’t charge fees and doesn’t get funding from Congress.” The Forest Service is framed as the victim and the Congress or those who block general fees/contributions are framed as villains. This remains true (or not) whether or not the frame was imposed innocently. My post frames the issue as one where the taxpayer and/or the public interest are victims and the Forest Service is villain. Neither frame does justice to the problem at hand. But, hey, this is a blog and things are “thrown together” quickly.

In both cases—in every case—we ought not to forget that these twin forces, framing and blaming, are almost always at work. And we must never forget that there are plenty of victims (real and imagined) and plenty of us who can rightfully be viewed as villains from time to time. What remains a challenge and an opportunity is to be able to work together toward betterment of the public interest as best we can when we mostly see only our own shadows playing in reflection off the walls of caves that keep our thoughts narrowly confined.

[Note: 2/24/8:23 AM — I updated this post slightly, in response to a comment]

Appeal Challenges Old-growth Logging Near Grand Canyon

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(Below is the press release from the Center for Biological Diversity.  Click here to download a copy of the appeal.  Photos of the Jacob Ryan project area, including old-growth trees aged by the Center and previously marked for logging by the Forest Service, can be seen and downloaded here. – mk)


Photo:  Center for Biological Diversity ecologist Jay Lininger displays the core of 180-year-old ponderosa pine marked for logging at the Jacob Ryan timber sale. Center photo.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.— For the third time in a decade, the Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club today administratively appealed a 25,000-acre timber sale that is slated to log old-growth trees and forests on the Kaibab National Forest near Grand Canyon’s north rim.

Approved in January, this is the Forest Service’s fifth iteration of the Jacob Ryan timber sale since 2003, each plan seeking to log old-growth trees and forests. The Center and Sierra Club blocked two earlier iterations of the sale; the Forest Service voluntarily withdrew two others.

“This forest needs a limited amount of small-tree thinning to safely reintroduce natural fires, but for a decade the Forest Service has rejected common sense and opted instead to cut down old trees,” said Jay Lininger, an ecologist with the Center. “The Jacob Ryan timber sale makes a mockery of forest restoration and exposes the need for leadership and reform within the Forest Service.

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Today’s appeal challenges logging of old-growth trees and argues that logging will not retain sufficient forest canopy to support the rare northern goshawk — a woodland raptor. A source population of goshawks lives on the Kaibab Plateau, where Jacob Ryan is located.  According to a Forest Service report, goshawks are “vulnerable to extirpation or extinction in Arizona.”

“It is just outrageous that the Forest Service is proposing for the fifth time to log these old growth and large trees, when we have so little remaining,” said Sandy Bahr, chapter director for the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon (Arizona) Chapter. “The old growth and large trees make up less than 3 percent of our forests and are a critical component of healthy forests and essential for wildlife species such as the northern goshawk. In a real restoration project, they would be the centerpiece, not slated for logging.”

In its last failed attempt to implement the timber sale, the Forest Service in 2009 admitted violating its own management plan in response to a Center appeal. Center staff documented old-growth trees marked for cutting, despite bogus claimsby the Forest Service that it would protect old growth.

Forest Service Mindshift: From Regulators to Partners

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The Forest Service seems to love the idea of partnerships, but questions remain as to how this happened, and where it will end. I’m not talking about government-to-government collaboration here, but so-called “partnerships” in other arenas. The notion is particularly contentious when partners are “for profit” corporations. In the early 1900s, the Forest Service would never have dreamed (except in nightmares) of “partnering” with big business. Instead, founder Gifford Pinchot wanted to regulate forest management on all lands, including and especially lands owned by big timber companies. But it was never to be. Not here in the USA.

In Harold Steen’s The Forest Service: a History we find enough of the tortured history of the Forest Service to give me pause. Forest Service people had to be tough to maintain their zeal in trying to encourage conservation and regulate long-term timber supply in the face of frontier ethics that pretty much said, use it or lose it. Gifford Pinchot didn’t last as long as he hoped as Forest Service Chief (1901-1910)—having crossed at least one politician too many in his zeal to reign-in business corruption. Still, Pinchot left a mark that would position the agency pretty much in his shadow for a Century. Half of that Century, almost, the Forest Service sought to regulate all timber harvest public and private, and much of the grazing in the country.

Just before the Forest Service finally gave up the all-lands regulation fight early in the Dwight D. Eisenhower Administration, after being libeled “socialists,” the Forest Service switched gears and rhetoric, and decided to be cooperators in sustained yield units composed of both public and private land. [Remember that this was the era of emerging McCarthyism, and being branded as a “socialist” was at minimum problematic.] The public good in these deals was that the Forest Service could pressure private industry to grow up and out of it’s “cut and run” behaviors—to at least replant cutover lands. To some extent it worked. To some extent the tragedy on private lands continued. But at least the Forest Service tried to achieve its regulatory dream, albeit via other means—cooperation.

Public-private cooperation is a difficult concept to wrap the mind around. How do you cooperate with “the government”? Isn’t a democratic government supposed to be an extension of the people? I can easily wrap my mind around the idea of complying with government dictate or regulation. But to “cooperate” with the government? I’m not even sure what it means. You can almost wrap your mind around the idea when you think of the Forest Service as one of many entities that manage land in the US, but when you contrast government land management (particularly multiple use management) with other land management, the idea still doesn’t make all that much sense. Still, I admit that there are areas where similar goals (e.g. biodiversity preservation) may indeed make sense to multiple owners as well as the country as a whole.

The whole idea of “cooperation” didn’t make too much sense in the early days, and didn’t get better with time, as big recreation interests got more active in and around public lands. As the rhetoric shifted from cooperation to partnership, the task was not made easier. Ski resort complexes come immediately to mind. You tell me, where is the “public good” in a ski resort complex that cannot be obtained via contracting, else outright privatization? I know that there are those who believe that conservation is better obtained with a public-private regulation-partnership model in place. But I’m skeptical. On the other hand if we begin to privatize “inholdings” in government land, where does that game end? So maybe we just have to muddle through, grit our teeth and deal with the idea that there will be some limited, regulated private use of public lands, alongside public use.

I wondered back in 1999 what we ought to make of emergent coziness between the government and those who seek to profit from land and resource managed by the government—particularly such coziness with organized commercial recreation interests. Here are a few inquiry questions I posed then, and repeat now:

  • What type commercial uses are appropriate on the National Forest in the 21st Century?
  • Is a “wise use”/multiple-use policy still sufficient when biological diversity, Wilderness, and other public use issues loom large?
  • Is there still reason to be wary of large scale commercial interests?
  • How ought we to fund the management of the National Forests, the National Parks, BLM lands, National Wildlife Refuges, etc.? Are user fees appropriate mechanisms? Are commercial permit fees appropriate? If so, in what mix and under what circumstances?
  • What roles, if any, might non-government organizations play in the funding federal lands management? What roles, if any, might corporations and other for-profit organizations play? What roles, if any, might nonprofit organizations play? Are all nonprofits created equally?

Public Use
Clinton-era Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, once safely out of office, endorsed “public use”, suggesting that we ought to steer clear of “privatization” via things like government/private partnerships. Oddly (or maybe not) Babbitt did not mention commercial recreations interests, while explicitly mentioning timbering, grazing, and mining. I’ll assume that Babbitt believed that they too ought to be in the mix.

I’ll not go that far, even though I wish we had never allowed so much commercial use of public lands—i.e managing national forests for “private” rather than public use. I realize that a “public use” agenda is not the way history played out on the public lands, although there is still time/hope. Further, I doubt that we would still have the public lands in the amount we still do, if the idea of strict public use had been the agenda from the get-go. The public lands were born in controversy, and we ought to be glad that we’ve so far kept them intact in an American culture hell-bent on promoting individualism, and individual profit-making. Still, there is time to make a major course-correction toward public use.

My Views on Public v. Private Use of National Forests
Where do I stand re: privatized commercial use of public lands? I enthusiastically support public use, including scenic backdrops to development, biodiversity reserves, wilderness reserves, and more.

I’m OK with some private use of public forest products/services, managed under broad multiple use/ecological stewardship guidelines. I’m OK with private use of wood products from the national forests. Although, I’ve argued that we might be better off just selling the products to commercial vendors at “the loading dock”—some transfer station that would allow products to be transferred from public to private ownership—rather than allowing corporate interests to work the public lands to get the products. I might even be OK with, e.g. timber sales contracts—i.e. allowing commercial entities to work public lands for the forest products—as long as there are enough eyes on the contracts to make sure that the taxpayers get a fair deal, alongside the contractors. Similarly with “stewardship contracts” that allow contractors to keep and sell some forest products.

I’m Ok with commercial recreation interests, although not OK with making the national forests into Disneyland-type destinations. I’m still struggling with ski resorts and upscale marinas on public lands, but I guess I’ll have to allow space for them in my design—and I do use them, so it would be a bit disingenuous if I were to suggest otherwise.

As for “outfitters and guides,” I believe they ought to be able to operate on public lands, but with much less privilege than they now are allowed. And I don’t think the Forest Service ought to try to regulate them. This gets tricky, but maybe not as much as we might initially think, since the agency will have to allow for group recreational use of the national forests in any case, and if a group has a outfitter and/or guide that doesn’t seem to complicate the matter that much. One question: Why does the Forest Service seek to regulate outfitters and guides?

But I believe that marketing, e.g. signing and soliciting for any and all commercial use of the national forests should be minimal and in keeping with traditional rustic imagery of the national forests.

And I believe that fee collection should be both fair to the owners of the national forests and should be easily administered. For example, it would be better to charge an annual fee for use, than to charge for each occurrence. Why? Simply because it detracts from natural experiences when one is constantly grabbing for a billfold.

Regarding concessionaires, I believe their presence is allowable (as it has been in the US Park Service since pretty much the beginning) but their operation ought not to be the “swinging hot spots” from Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi. Instead concessionaires ought to be relative low-key operations. Exceptions might be made for ski resort communities, but maybe the best bet there would be to trade lands so that at least the most commercial of operations are not on the national forests. But that too has problems as I explained above. My preference re: campgrounds/picnicgrounds is for the Forest Service to manage them (likely via volunteers) and use them in part for conservation education.

As for grazing on public lands, I’m hard-pressed to see a good case for continuing it, if only because of the many disease-related problems in co-mingling domestic stock and wildlife. I’m not opposed to grazing on public lands if properly managed, e.g. onsite caretakers of a herd, but only if we can somehow get beyond the disease problem.

Mining and Oil and Gas exploration are at-minimum problematic, but I don’t see them stopping. Our best bet might be to continue vigilance and seek ever-better-regulation of these activities relative to both environmental and aesthetic considerations.

Whadayathink?
Have I joined with the forces of “darkness and evil”, i.e. those who would “marketize” the national forests? Or is this a useful beginning to ring-fence creeping marketization? In his book The Abstract Wild, in a chapter titled “Economic Nature,” Jack Turner describes the loss of shared social values, what others might call the virtues of civic engagement. These values might include sense of community, sense of place, sense of wildness in interacting with and attempting to be, once-again, part of Nature, etc. Through time, however, the world, and particularly the US is approaching a place where all values save one—money—are lost along the timeline of a society madly reinventing itself into crass-consumerism, accompanied by marketing madness. In Turner’s words,

Only one widely shared value remains—money—and this explains our propensity to use business and economics rather than moral debate and legislation to settle our differences. …

This rejection of persuasion creates a social order wherein economic language (and its extensions in law) exhaustively describes our world and, hence becomes our world. Moral, aesthetic, cultural, and spiritual order are then merely subjective tastes of no social importance. It is thus no wonder that civility has declined. For me this new economic conservation “ethic” reeks of cynicism—as though having failed to persuade and woo your love, you suddenly switched to cash. The new economics conservationists think they are being rational; I think they treat Mother Nature like a whorehouse. (pp. 57-8)

And what about partnerships? I still don’t much like the word, neither the word “cooperator.” And I’m particularly incensed when government people cozy-up to commercial agendas, even sometimes becomming cheerleaders for such. I do like the idea of collaboration in policy making, in program development, and so forth. I have reservations as to the manner that the Forest Service now chooses to engage individuals and public interest groups, but that is a matter for other posts—many of which I’ve already aired.

Endnote
No matter how the “use” and “commercial use” debates play out, with accompanying litigation and legislation, there are at least two intertwined “bigger issues” that remain on the table, in the background: biodiversity and associated species loss, and human population growth (with related resource extraction and pollution concerns that include human lifestyle concerns). These two issues under gird pretty much all others but are not popularly discussed. I hope that these two items will again find their way into mainstream talk in advance of catastrophe. But I’m doubtful that such will happen anytime soon, and I don’t believe we’ve got a lot of time left, particularly given the dynamics of doubling of human population growth (Wikipedia link) and the fact that the doubling curve is an exponential growth curve that is working into a very steep space—i.e. when 3 billion became 6 billion people (30 years, 1 generation) the curves looks remarkably steeper than when 3 million became 6 million people (1000 years, 33 generations).

On Corruption, Agency Capture and Forest Service Experience

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In comments on a recent post I noted that “corruption and bias are always in play” when dealing with high-level politics. Over at the Kaufmann Governance Post, Daniel Kaufmann has taken up a crusade to daylight and castigate what he calls “corruption,” moving it beyond more traditionally narrow framing as bribes, kickbacks, direct money payoffs, etc. In a post titled Capture and the Financial Crisis: An Elephant forcing a rethink of Corruption, Kaufmann says,

it makes sense to have a neutral and broader definition of corruption, akin to: “the privatization of public policy”. In addition of being a legally neutral definition, it moves beyond coarse manifestations of bureaucratic bribery, and it would encompass undue influence or capture of regulations and policies by narrow interests.

Kaufmann is particularly critical of undue influence of lobbyists and other “influence peddlers,” and notes:

the focus on corruption needs to move away from exclusive focus on the ‘abuse of public office’ and squarely acknowledge that corruption often involves collusion between the public and private (and at times outright capture by the private potentates).

What do you think? Does Kaufmann’s framing make sense? If so, Who ought we to have as Under Secretaries, as Agency Heads, etc? Or does might it be that some be dis-allowed from serving. If so, who? Or does it make any difference? Maybe an answer is that “we the people” ought to watch particularly closely those who have been “influence peddlers,” rather than banning them outright.

I have been particularly outraged that lobbyists have so much power in our country. And I believe far too much discourse and policy-making in the US revolves around industry and commerce, and too little around matters of “public interest.” Hence I was happy to see President Obama disallow “lobbyists” from filling the seats known as “political appointees.” Still, I wonder: Did it help?

I find it difficult to make a case that it is worse to have an industry lobbyist, i.e. Mark Rey as an Under Secretary who oversees the US Forest Service than to have a key corporate lawyer like John Crowell, from the same industry that by many accounts had already captured the Forest Service. In either case I find such appointments at least questionable. That is not to say that an individual from such backgrounds might not rise above said background, just that it seems unlikely that they would.

How might we do better in our politics? Unfortunately, we seem to be in one of those moments that Richard Hofstadter called “paranoid” in his book The Paranoid Style in American Politics (Wikipedia link). In such moments neither side in the US two-party system will listen to the other side, and power-over rules the day—power-with is seldom seen or used.

[Note: The idea that the Forest Products Industry captured the Forest Service at a point in time, is somewhat appealing given how dominate Timber used to be as one of the “multiple uses.” But the idea was never totally true, and less true today than yesterday. Still there is/was enough “capture” to be wary of lobbyists from, and other advocates for a dominant industry to be key policy-makers for that agency. Even if “big timber” is in its twilight as per the Forest Service, “big recreation” is still very much and increasingly at center stage.]

The Art and Promise of Adaptive Governance

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Adaptive Governance is art and science, blended with management and politics. It is art since political decision-making is an art. One face of adaptive governance is a dance wherein public land managers engage with particularly ecological and social scientists in learning from experience about transformations in ecosystems and institutions. The dance is broadened further, since both managers and scientists dance with the public, both as interested individuals and communities of interest alongside communities of place.

The promise of adaptive governance for the US Forest Service and other public lands agencies is that it might heal the wounds from many of the forest and rangeland wars that have only festered during thirty years of failed rational planning games. The promise too is that if properly framed and practiced, adaptive governance could free up talent at the national forest level to do the many worthwhile jobs that need attending to at that level, like road, trail, and campground and other recreation-related maintenance, like permit administration, and program and project management (fire, timber, recreation, minerals, grazing, etc.), like attending to trespass and encroachment problems, fragmentation of land ownership patterns/problems, and so on. Forest-level people would not have to attend to many tasks now burdening them under the current “planning” frame—framed as rational planning with public input.

One problem I’ve been harping about for years is that “wicked problems” can not be tamed via rational planning. They have to be attended to through the art of political decision-making. Take a look at the Fishlake National Forest in central Utah, for example. It is widely known for its ATV experiences, jamborees, etc. It is also a relatively easily-accessible place for big game hunting, via various sorts of Off Highway Vehicles. [In younger years I used to wander the roads there, and wander off the roads, looking for big mule deer.] The decisions, or political/social happenstance, that took the Fishlake in this direction, are the stuff of politics, not science.

Some of the tasks that now appear to be the responsibility of forest-level managers and practitioners would be handled closer to the center or the Forest Service (and at the center, the USFS Washington Office). These are the tasks of landscape and broader-scaled assessments, monitoring efforts, and related problem staging/resolution/learning as adaptive management policy-setting. In addition, the center of the organization would be held accountable to steer and monitor deeper “double-loop” learning that comes from thoughtful examination, reflection upon, and learning from “Transformations in Human and Natural systems,” the subtitle of Lance Gunderson and CS Holling’s Panarchy. Finally the center of the Forest Service would be the keeper of the Vision/Mission of the agency, reconciled appropriately with the Congress and the Administration. [Note: Mission/vision stuff should not be framed as “NFMA planning,” but still might be part of broader strategy setting and contained-in-part by a FS Strategic Plan.]

Critiquing Adaptive Governance
I have spent the last week or two trying to better understand applied adaptive governance, to see whether the time to try it formally on American public lands is at hand. I ran across several interesting investigations [which I’ll not link to today, but may detail further later], looking into the art and practice of adaptive governance or what we might call adaptive management in its public form. In almost every case the authors were reluctant to embrace adaptive governance fully since the track record is not very good, for various and sundry reasons. Once problem frequently noted was that the practice was too technical, too much engaged in “scientific rationality.” On the other extreme, some authors noted a tendency for unwarranted devolution; wherein the process was captured by too narrowly framed interests, often dominated by “locals.” In almost every case, US authors failed to investigate the influence of “political backlash” by the Bush/Cheney Administration as they waged war on the Clinton Administration’s initial strides at adaptive governance under banners of “Ecosystem Management” and “Collaborative Stewardship.” This backlash began earlier with the so-called “Gingrich Revolution”— remember the “Contract On With America”? [Want some fun? Google up: “contract with america” “public lands”] Why was the backlash missed? I don’t see how you can separate adaptive governance efforts from the politics that enfold them.

As mentioned earlier, critical review authors cite the fact that adaptive management in its public form is too technical, too much centered in technocratic rationality. But adaptive governance need not be so burdened. Adaptive governance can operate in policy-development spaces far apart from those where “adaptive management experiments” are structured, tested, and rationalized. But it can embrace those too, where they make most sense. This is the direction some of us tried to take the Forest Service in the early 1990s, under the banner “A Shared Approach to Ecosystem Management,” outlined in part here. It lives today under the banner “adaptive governance.”

Embracing Adaptive Governance
An important aspect of the emergence of adaptive governance is that it is about humans and their institutional settings—that these often fall into the same rigidity traps (problems of overly-tight coupling) and poverty traps that we talk about in so-called natural systems. This is easily seen through the lenses of Compass and Gyroscope: Integrating Science and Politics for the Environment (1993), Barriers and Bridges to the Renewal of Ecosystems and Institutions (1995), and Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems (2002).

I believe that the time it right to more-fully embrace adaptive governance—to replace what has been forest planning. But a big barrier is that the Forest Service remains a technocracy, a big-believer in science and management, with little or no formal emphasis on the art of “forestry,” the art of “political decision-making,” etc. I remember all too well the many Forest Service social science meetings where I complained that two words (and practices) were forbidden in both voice and action: politics and psychology.

In a future post I will lay out a roadmap to begin that journey as a rewrite to the administrative “rule” that is being batted around in Draft form, improperly framed as a “planning rule.” Here, I’ll just leave one definition of adaptive governance. Maybe someone here can come up with a better one.

Adaptive Governance: linking a broad range of actors at multiple scales to deal with the interrelated dynamics of resources and ecosystems, management systems and social systems, as well as uncertainty, unpredictability, and surprise. Adaptive governance focuses on experimentation and learning, and it brings together research on institutions and organizations for collaboration, collective action, and conflict resolution in relation to natural resource and ecosystem management. The essential role of individuals needs to be recognized in this context (e.g., leadership, trust building, vision, and meaning); their social relations (e.g., actor groups, knowledge systems, social memory) and social networks serve as the web that tie together the adaptive governance system. It has cross-level and cross-scale activities and includes governmental policies that frame creativity.

From “Adaptive Governance of Social-Ecological Systems”, Carl Folke, Thomas Hahn, Per Olsson, and Jon Norberg, Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 2005. 30:441-473 (pdf)

Related:
Adaptive Governance and Forest Planning, John Rupe, NCFP, Feb. 2010
Book review of Adaptive Governance: Integrating Science, Policy, and Decision Making, by Ronald D. Brunner, Toddi A. Steelman, Lindy Coe-Juell, Christina M. Crowley, Christine M. Edwards, Donna W. Tucker, 2005
Collaboration Reading for Thoughtful Practitioners, Dave Iverson 2006
Taking Uncertainty Seriously: Adaptive Governance and International Trade (pdf), Rosie Cooney and Andrew T.F. Lang, The European Journal of International Law 18(3), 2007