collaboration and public involvement

What is forest planning?

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I’m trying to work up yet-another forest planning post tracing the evolution of Forest Service decision-making from the rational planning era to the adaptive governance era. So I decided to solicit opinion in advance. What do you think forest-level planning is? Here are some possibilities. Feel free to add more, and I’ll update this post.

What best describes “forest-level planning”?

  • Anachronism – an artifact of a bygone era
  • Distraction – a relatively safe place for environmentalists and other “forests service malcontents” to wage war against the forest service, distracting them from larger arenas where they might prove more damaging to forest service agendas
  • Nuisance – nonsense that keeps foresters and “ologists” out of the woods
  • Abomination – a “pox on all our houses,” a legal/administrative nightmare
  • Communitarian Decision Container – a place for people to gather together to build community and resolve problems about a national forest they love
  • Rational Decision Container – a place for professionals and scientists to help managers make rational decisions about best use of a national forest

[Updated: 3/28/2011]

Forest Wars: From Multiple Use to Sustained Conflict

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When we sometimes tire of our “word wars” here, we need to remember that they are just one manifestation of broader holy wars being waged in and around our public lands.

Long Road to War

Utilitarian ideology has been a mainstay in forest policy development since the early 1900s when Gifford Pinchot and Bernhard Fernow introduced forestry into American government. Samuel Hays’ Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency, alongside David Clary’s Timber and the Forest Service both build on self-righteousness to the point of religious fervor among many who chose to work on the land, notably foresters and engineers, and their evangelists (pundits, professors, etc). Similar books could be written — likely have been — talking about the religious-like fervor of the environmental community. [See, e.g. Environmentalism as Religion, Wall Street Journal, 4/22/2010.]

For many years, what later emerged as forest wars were never more than disagreements between mainstream forestry practitioners and malcontents like John Muir, Aldo Leopold and Bob Marshall. Such “disagreements” were deep-seated ideological splits, but contrarians of that era didn’t have the political/legal muscle to make for war. Later, however, the very same disagreements intensified into ideological war with the dawn of the environmental movement.

Environmentalists gained traction in forest debates, appeals, litigation, etc. after people began to wake up to environmental concerns in the late 1960s. The first of a series of Wilderness Acts became law in 1964. The Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966 predated and set a stage for the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Earth Day began in 1970. In 1969 the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) became law. In 1976 The National Forest Management Act (NFMA) and the Federal Lands Policy Management Act added to the mix. The environmental battles gained legal footing. But it is not clear that the legal footing was ever recognized, or at least accepted by the US Forest Service. At least if actions speak louder than words, we must question whether the Forest Service and its USDA overlords ever accepted these legislative mandates.

Disdain for legislative mandates runs deep, but there is an alternative path — a road not taken. Sally Fairfax set a stage for continued disgust for NEPA among forest practitioners with her 1978 Science article titled A Disaster in the Environmental Movement. Countrast Fairfax’s view with that from Jim Kennedy’s NEPA note: Legislative Confrontation of Groupthink.

Environmental Wars

Beginning in the 1970s, environmentalists waged war on timbering, grazing, road building, mining and oil & gas development, developed recreation, and more. Warriors on the “enviro” side typically vilify corporations, else government “lackeys” for the corporations. Warriors on the practitioner side vilify the enviros. In war there is little room for thoughtful discussion or dialogue. The rift between the two camps will likely remain very deep for a long time.

It is not clear that the Forest Service ever gave much heed to the “legislative confrontation of groupthink” ideas in NEPA. It seems that the Forest Service has been evading/avoiding NEPA responsibilities from the get-go. They continued “go-go timbering” up to the point of shutdown following the Monongahela and Bitterroot controversies. After things were sort-of opened up again via NFMA, the Forest Service wanted “once and for all NEPA”, i.e. the forest plan would be a catch-all NEPA container, allowing all projects to flow without any further NEPA review. When that didn’t work, the Forest Service played various shell-games pointing either upward (e.g. forest plans, regional plans) for NEPA compliance, else downward toward projects depending on what was being challenged. Finally, during the Bush/Cheney period, they sought to “categorically exclude” as much as possible from NEPA review.

In 1999 I wrote up a little thing titled Use of the National Forests. I noted four distinct periods of Forest Service history: Conservation and “Wise Use” — 1900-1950, Multiple Use — 1950-1970, Sustained Conflict — 1970-2000, and Collaborative Stewardship — 2000+. Although we might quibble over the dates as well as the categories, I now realize that I was over-optimistic as to the dawn of the Collaborative Stewardship era. At minimum there was a dramatic backlash — not necessarly against collabortion but clearly against environmetalism — commencing with Bush/Cheney Administration and their ABC (“anything but Clinton”) campaigns. The Bush/Cheney war on the environment was a reenactment of an earlier war waged by the Ronald Reagan Administration.

Bob Keiter (Univ. of Utah Law School) chronicled the emergence of both ecological awareness and collaborative stewardship in Keeping Faith with Nature. Keiter later chronicled the Bush/Cheney reactionary footnote in a 2007 article, Breaking Faith with Nature. Taken together, the two trace certain aspects of emergent gospels that were part of the ideological wars. The former traces what I’ll call the “ecosystem awareness” movement in the Clinton era of government, and the second the Healthy Forests Initiative and the Healthy Forests Restoration Act reactions during the Bush/Cheney era.

An era of “collaborative stewardship” may yet be emerging, albeit slowly and as already seen, with pushbacks. Enviros are still quite leery of “collaborations” and high-sounding agency rhetoric. They are warriors, after all. So the wars are not yet over, and may not be for a very long time. Timbering continues, albeit a a much lower volume than in the go-go days, and reframed as “ecological restoration” or “forest restoration”. New forest evangelists appear on the stage. Now we have both Wally Covington and Jerry Franklin preaching the gospel of forest restoration. I’ll leave it for further discussion as to how the two brands compare, and as to who buys into one, the other, both, or neither.

Other Wars

Even if wars between environmentalists and industrial and government practitioners were to ever end, these are just the tip of an iceberg of forest wars. We must add in the budget and staffing wars (hereafter budget wars) that have been ongoing in the Forest Service for a long time. Timber and Engineering reigned supreme in budget wars for many years, particularly after World War Two and the housing boom that fed rapid increases in timbering and associated road-building after WWII. Recreation, Wildlife, Soil and Water, even Fire, Personnel (later, “Human Resources”), Planning, Budget, Fiscal, State and Private Forestry, etc. were always struggling for funds. After go-go timbering days were a thing of the past — i.e. Environmentalists effectively shut down “go-go timbering”, Recreation and Fire gained an upper hand in budget wars. Somehow Engineering always seemed to keep its share of the money. [Note: Someday, maybe I’ll get these budget categories approximately right. For now, they are “good enough for government work”]

Finally — not trivially — Public Lands Wars have raged more of less continuously for many years. Remember the “Sagebrush Rebellion” and the so-called “County Supremacy Movement”? Now those have transformed into more of a “States’ Rights” movement. In all cases, part of the action has been an assault on federal lands.

I’ve probably missed some of the “wars” here. But if I’ve captured any of this even partially correctly, the landscapes, biophysical and political, have been transformed in the process. Some argue, as did Fairfax way back when, that the legal-administrative gridlock that has been a reality in federal lands management during the last 30-40 years, has done significant harm to the environment, and only resulted in wasted paper (EISs and dollars/time spent on forest planning, project planning, related NEPA work, appeals and litigation). Others like me argue that sometimes it is necessary to grapple with vexing social issues, even wicked problems in a very public way. Such “civic discovery” is a necessary part of a working democracy. Would that we could move from “war talk” to “fierce conversations“.

Related:
NEPA is Not the Problem, Forest Policy – Forest Practice, Oct 2007
The Blame Game

Time for a New Department of Public Lands?

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An old adage says, “Form follows function.” In my experience with the federal government it often works the other way around, i.e. Function follows form. Consider “collaborative engagement.” If you survey the landscape, you’ll often find the Forest Service attempting collaboration, while at the same time so is the Bureau of Land Management, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the US Park Service, etc. Each attempts to develop policy (often via planning) by “considering the needs” of adjacent land holdings, but they still do it for the most part alone. In single-agency collaboration and planning, function follows form.

Is it time to rethink federal agency “form” in the ongoing movement toward collaborative engagement in public lands management? In particular, is it time to rethink how the federal government functions in these deliberations? Is is time to relearn how form ought to follow function?

Along with many others I have argued that it proves inefficient for each federal agency to attempt ecosystem management deliberations by themselves—whether for assessment, policy development, action, or monitoring. It also proves frustrating for collaborators. Too many forums, too many meetings, etc. At a time when all eyes are on the federal government to trim its budget, why not, one again, hope for high-level reorganization.

A Department of Public Lands

Maybe it is time for a Department of Public Lands. Such a Department could effectively set up appropriate forums for collaborative engagement in public lands policy and action, in concert with state and local officials, and other collaborators.

If the Obama Administration plays its cards right during upcoming budget deficit battles, we might see it make a move toward a cabinet-level Department of Public Lands, complimented with a sister Department for Environmental Regulation. This second Department would serve to separate land management from regulatory policy and enforcement—an idea that we will leave for a later post.

Setting up a new Department of Public Lands would take the Forest Service out of the Department of Agriculture and allow it to start anew as a division or agency in the new department—in concert with The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management, The Park Service, etc. (It would probably be good to once-again consider combining the Forest Service with the Bureau of Land Management, as well.)

Such reorganization would allow for a fresh start, whereby the new Department of Lands and all its agencies could be chartered for collaborative engagement in adaptive management. (Or maybe just move the Forest Service into the Department of Interior, and follow a similar plan.) In the former case legislators and the Administration would have to work up new organic legislation, etc. But it is likely time to refresh “organic” framing anyway.

Either way, with a new Department of Public Lands or with the Forest Service moved into Interior, the public wins in at least five ways: First, outdated, bureaucratic agencies can be set up with structures and functions that work for the new century—championing collaborative engagement for conservation, preservation, and use. Second, the Department could field many questions about larger-scale management that are not well fielded under current structure. Third, many mid-level staff personnel, e.g. Forest Service Regional and National staff members, might be better positioned as Departmental positions. Why? So that when collaborators work out the regional assessment, action, and monitoring, the federal government will not be so fractured as it now is. Fourth, the taxpayers win as there should be fewer personnel in a Department so structured. Finally, more money can go to the field, where infrastructure and other needs have been neglected for too long.

Why Now?

There will never be a better time to think about this idea, since many mid-level (and high-level) Forest Service employees are near the end of their careers—i.e. no massive layoffs needed. So too with other land management agencies.

Why might it work now? Because in the next few years there will be many discussions on how to trim the federal deficit and whittle-down the national debt. This may give President Obama a chance to do what so many others have failed to do: bring the Forest Service into line with other federal land and resource management agencies. In doing so, Obama might make history by charting a new course for federal lands management.

Note: Jeff DeBonis and I offered up a similar suggestion early in the Clinton Administration. Ours was just one of many similar suggestions made through the years. The suggestions have never gained traction. Maybe this time will be different. Or maybe not.

You’ve Got To Have Friends

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Dave Iverson, in responding to Sharon’s post The Ranchers and the Feds Should Be Friends said that:

“. . . the Forest Service has no business courting friendship.

The folks involved with the many “friends of” groups associated with a number of national forests might disagree.

 

A few years ago, I was fortunate to spend a week learning from the late Brian O’Neil, long-time superintendent of the Golden Gate NRA. Brian’s philosophy was never to do a job with government employees if a volunteer would do it instead. According to the NRA’s webpage,” Park staffing is augmented by a high level of volunteerism, generally exceeding 350,000 hours of volunteer service per year.”

The friends group that Brian cultivated, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy says its mission is “to preserve the Golden Gate National Parks, enhance the park visitor experience, and build a community dedicated to conserving the parks for the future.” Sounds pretty consistent with the best interests of the park and the people it serves.

Brian’s called his version of fund-raising “friend-raising.”  He never called it fund-raising, even though the Conservancy has contributed over $165 million dollars in support of the park.   He thought of it a long-term process where people first become aware of the NRA, then come to know it, come to care about it, and finally to support it through time, money, and advocacy.

[Interesting digression:  the GGNRA is currently using a negotiated rule-making process with an appointed committee to  to decide how best to manage dog walking in the park.]

 

The national forest in California that best exemplifies the friend-raising philosophy is the San Bernardino.  Their main partner group, The San Bernardino National Forest Association describes its mission as follows: “Since 1992, we’ve worked to complement the mission of the US Forest Service. We develop new resources and partnerships that create new opportunities, particularly through the efforts of volunteers, for conservation, education, and recreation that have added value to the forest’s role as public land.”

In light of all of the many “enemies of the national forests” who see public lands only as a source of profit that they would like a piece of, shouldn’t all national forests be actively trying to make more friends?  Have we already forgotten the Sagebrush Rebellion attempts to privatize national forests?

And what is the deep inner meaning of the title of this post?  Just ask Bete Midler:

“Cause you got to have friends
La la la la la la la la la“

4FRI Agreement Signed

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Here’s the link to an Arizona Daily Sun story.

On paper, they are all starting on the same page.

Now comes the hard part: finding the money and implementing one of the most ambitious forest restoration plans in the country.

More than 20 organizations — some of them past legal adversaries — signed a memorandum of understanding Wednesday in Flagstaff with the U.S. Forest Service for the restoration of 1.5 million acres across four forests: Coconino, Kaibab, Apache-Sitgreaves and Tonto.

The sheer size of the project had signatories grasping for superlatives.

“At hundreds of thousands of acres, you can just about manage for every kind of wildlife except grizzly bears,” said Wally Covington, executive director of NAU’s Ecological Restoration Institute. “This gives you the scale to protect watersheds, create wildlife habitat and attract viable businesses that can use the excess trees, provide jobs and stimulate local economies.”

The Coconino and Kaibab forests, the first in line to be treated, had a 750,000-acre action plan released last month. The public comment period continues through March 11.

A decade ago, Flagstaff-area forest officials, scientists, business groups and conservationists launched a plan to thin and restore 100,000 acres that is ongoing.

But public funding has been scarce, and the wood-products industry has said the scale of the harvesting is too small — a 20-year guaranteed wood supply is needed to justify private investment in a strandboard plant, which would pay for the thinning and other treatments.

The so-called Four Forests Restoration Initiative addresses that concern by prescribing thinning and controlled burns across the entire ponderosa pine forest. That had Pascal Berlioux, president and CEO of Arizona Forest Restoration Products Inc., anxious to get started Wednesday.

“Collaboration does not accomplish enough if it does not translate into action,” Berlioux said. “It is now time to cross that last bridge and complete the planning and contracting processes that will allow appropriate-scale industry to build a small-diameter tree utilization infrastructure capable of offsetting treatment costs and funding landscape-scale restoration in northern Arizona.”

Some of the conservation groups that signed the agreement Wednesday have tangled in the past with the Forest Service and even each other over standards for protecting wildlife habitat and sustainable harvesting. But they appeared to have called a truce Wednesday.

“Today marks a turning point for northern Arizona’s forests and the communities and species that call them home,” said Todd Schulke, forest policy analyst at the Center for Biological Diversity. “After a century of ecosystem decline, the long-overdue restoration envisioned by the Four Forest Restoration Initiative will set forested landscapes on a path of recovery. We’re excited to be part of that endeavor.”

Among other signatories were the Northern Arizona Loggers Association, the Grand Canyon Trust, and the Nature Conservancy of Arizona.

Here’s a link to the 4FRI website.

New Planning Rule Fails as Adaptive Management

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What is a forest plan? A committee of scientists once said that a forest plan is simply a loose-leaf compendium of all decisions large and small that affect the administration of a national forest. Following adaptive management principles and practices, “decisions” can and are made at multiple scales: international, national whether or not made by the US Forest Service, regional and local. So too with assessments, and monitoring and evaluation measures. All these are the workings of adaptive management (pdf), not planning . The whole of the Forest Service ought to be charged to work together to accomplish broad conservation, preservation, and use goals through adaptive management. Framing needs to be changed to do this. A central planning frame has failed for 30 years. Why continue down this path?

In an adaptive management frame, forest supervisors oversee the day-to-day workings of a national forest administrative unit. But decisions affecting that unit are made in various ways at various scales, whether as part of laws, policies, programs, or activities. There are no administrative “kings” in this worldview. Instead we have various actors, some within the Forest Service and some without, working in interrelated systems that frame the workings of a national forest. We have whole organizations working together to accomplish the work of adaptive management. The task is not left to “planning.”

Now let’s begin to parse the most recent “proposed rule” for developing a forest plan. Note first that the three levels of administrative decision-making outlined in the proposed rule — national, forest, project or activity — don’t fit the adaptive management model outlined above. Why does the Forest Service continue to pretend that managing a national forest comes down to three levels of decision-making? I can see no reason, beyond tradition for maintaining this hierarchy. Can you?

If the Forest Service is incapable of understanding adaptive management, is there any hope in trying to fit adaptive management into the Forest Service culture? After thirty years watching and attempting to participate in rule development for the RPA/NFMA I am once-again left to doubt whether any progress can be made.

Adaptive management is about organizations learning to adapt to ever changing environmental and social systems. Adaptive management is not about “planning.”

Perhaps I’m too old to dabble in this stuff anymore. Perhaps the “devil in the details” ought to be left to those younger. But I believe I’ve seen this same rhetoric before — since 1979 — and it appears, broadly speaking, pretty much the same to me. The Wilderness Society gives the proposed rule a B. I give it, once again, an F. The Forest Service simply doesn’t get adaptive management. The F is for failing to adequately frame the process, for “frame blindness” and other decision traps.

If I were a forest supervisor I would feel victimized by this (and earlier “planning rules”). Forest supervisors are asked to act as “forest kings,” not forest administrators. The Washington Office of the Forest Service does a disservice to both forest supervisors and regional foresters, as well as many in the so-called “staff” program areas of the Forest Service by continuing this tradition of laying it all at the feet of forest supervisors. We might as well call them “forest scapegoats” if this tradition continues. The Forest Service seems intent to continue its 30-year tradition of gridlock unless and until there is an awakening.

I will not comment here on the many process failings leading up to this proposed rule. I’ve done it before. Suffice it to say, despite many pleadings, the Forest Service once again gathered some input in the early stages, then went into the isolation booth to hatch a rule. It should surprise no one that it closely resembles earlier rules. No “real” blogs, no wikis, no true collaboration in rule development. Why not? Other government organizations use them. What we got instead was administrative politics as usual, with associated administrative gridlock.

It is likely too late to change this rule. Despite billing it as Draft, we all know that only minor tweaking will be allowed between Draft and Final Rule. It would be refreshing for the Forest Service to admit that it botched this effort. But American politics will not allow it. Too bad! Peter Drucker once remarked that one key measure of the worth of a decision is how rapidly it can be changed in light of new information. Would that the Forest Service could “see the light,” and change this rule.

Who’s at the Table II- Cooperating Agencies

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Over the holidays I saw this blog post on a letter send to the FS about who is at the table during cooperating agency meetings on the for the Rosemont Mine project. The letter suggests a FACA committee is necessary if non-governmental folks are invited to provide information.

Here is the letter. Here’s a quote.

It may be useful for you to know that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has promulgated agency-wide guidance specifically on this point. The guidance states that normally meetings between BLM and cooperating agencies do not trigger FACA because of the intergovernmental exemption. It explains that the exemption applies “to meetings between federal
officials and elected state, local, or tribal government officials or their designated employees with authority to act on their behalf.” It also addresses the question of whether a cooperating agency may be represented by a contractor working at such a meeting. BLM’s answer in this respect is very instructive:

”The cooperating agency relationship is intended to facilitate the exchange of views and expertise among BLM managers and staff and other governmental officials and staff. For these reasons, the BLM discourages the use of contractors to represent the cooperating agencies. . . .Contractors should not represent the cooperating agencies in meetings where advice or recommendations are sought.”

The guidance goes on to explain that given limited staff and time demands, a cooperating agency might be represented by a contractor if the meeting was used solely for the purpose of exchanging information. . . . “In practice, however, the distinction between exchanging information and seeking recommendations may not be clear.” “For these reasons, the BLM discourages the use of contractors to represent the cooperating agencies.” Please note that this guidance is directed
towards contractors representing other governmental entities. The guidance never suggests that it is ever appropriate to include an applicant or an applicant’s contractors on a regular basis in cooperating agency meetings.

Here’s a link to the 2005 BLM Deskguide to Cooperating Agency Relationships.

Some of you may remember this discussion on the openness of BLM cooperating agency meetings in Wyoming.

Finally, this story from earlier in December on “Who’s at the table” from Uintah County ; plaintiffs, yes, cooperating agencies, no.

The Coordination Process and Forest Plans: Opening Pandora’s Box?

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The recent ruling on the Southern California plans may well increase the weight of local governments at the table for forest planning, if Fred Kelly Grant’s logic here is correct.

The Court found that the only element of the coordination process not followed by the Forest Service was a requirement that it discuss the California policy as to “roadless areas” in order to demonstrate the inconsistencies between the Forest Service proposed plan and the California policy:
“Even if the Forest Service’s review of California’s policy was impeded by California’s failure to fully engage in the planning process, the rule nevertheless required the Forest Service to display the results of its review, however impeded. . . .The results of the Forest Service’s review of state input should have been displayed in the FEIS, even if part of the discussion would have consisted of noting that the State had not fully engaged in the process….”

“The failure to provide any discussion of input from the State, or at least of the State’s failure to fully engage in the planning process, was a violation of the NFMA. This is more than a merely technical violation, as it significantly inhibits the public’s ability to understand the competing priorities of the Forest Service and the State.”

The Court ordered the parties to file briefs describing their views of what process should be followed in compliance with her decision. December 22, 2010, the California Attorney General, and Governor elect, Edmund G. Brown Jr. announced a settlement through which the Forest Service is required to “reconsider its plans regarding wilderness lands in four national forests.”

Brown said: “With this settlement, the state of California will now play an active role along with the Forest Service in determining which areas of Southern California forests will be preserved as wilderness.”

According to Brown’s news release, the state’s basic complaint, in addition to failure to coordinate, was that the Forest Service was planning to allow new roads and trails for off-road vehicles and other uses. California opposed the new road and trail openings. The Court did not rule against the Forest Service on any issue except the failure to coordinate.

Even though local governments did not involve themselves in the lawsuit, each county in which any of the affected forest lands are located would have been entitled to the same result. The laws that require coordination with the state require the same with local governments—cities, towns, counties and special taxing districts. If any local government has an interest in the roadless nature of the Los Padres, Angeles, Cleveland and San Bernardino national forests, it must act quickly in asserting its coordination rights.

You can find the actual decision here.

What I found fascinating in my concrete-thinking way, is the quote from the decision:

“The results of the Forest Service’s review of state input should have been displayed in the FEIS, even if part of the discussion would have consisted of noting that the State had not fully engaged in the process established by the 2005 State Petitions Rule, the lawful process at the time.The failure to provide any discussion of input from the State, or at least of the State’s failure to fully engage in the planning process, was a violation of the NFMA. This is more than a merely technical violation, as it significantly inhibits the public’s ability to understand the competing priorities of the Forest Service and the State.”

A couple of points.

1. So if the FEIS had simply noted that “the State had not engaged in the process”; perhaps maximally one paragraph, would have obviated years of litigation and the settlement – which seems to be more analysis and collaboration with a relatively restricted number of seats at the table? Perhaps another settlement would have been to reissue the FEIS with the new paragraph as a revised DEIS and go for more public comment. Or even establish a FACA committee (including representatives of local governments) to review the comments on the new RDEIS and provide recommendations.

2. This case law around the coordination process definitely makes for more review and analysis, but at the end of the day, after documenting many alternatives and much more analysis, if local and state governments and feds still disagree about what to do, we still have a problem. It seems to be a pattern that we substitute more analysis for conflict resolution. Or we move the conflict resolution to the court system, where seats at the table are restricted.

3. Here’s a couple of ideas- First, in settlement agreements, only procedural solutions should be allowed for procedural problems. It is tempting to resolve these issues substantively, but that tends to leave out the groups that participated in the public collaborative process from the substantive discussion.

Second, I still think FACA committees where states and local governments have a place at the table, as well as others, are a way to build agreements and understandings that will stick.

4. Finally, the involvement of the State of California and the coordination element reminded me of this quote from Martin’s interview with Mark Rey here.

So when we came in, we looked at that history and we concluded that the crux of the problem with this issue is that it’s—on the one hand—an intensely political debate because it’s a basic resource allocation question over resources that people feel very strongly about. On the other hand, it’s a very technical debate because you’re trying to decide the fate of individual areas, putting boundaries around them that are based upon site specific data and so therefore you have to be able to amass and work with a substantial database to make good decisions.

In the case of trying to do a nationwide rule, you know you can get all the political closure you want to finally end the debate. You can have the president of the United States stand on the side of a ridge in southern Virginia and announce the outcome, but as the courts have told us, it’s hard to do justice to all the technical detail that is required to make the decision sound from the standpoint of a reviewing judge.

On the other hand, if you deal with this on a forest-by-forest basis, you can—by virtue of the fact that you have a lot less data to deal with—deal with it more intelligently.

The problem is that you can’t really get political closure to the decision because the decision is going to be made by a GS-14 or a GS-15 career civil servant and everybody knows that you can take the debate on up the food chain to see if you can get a better result. So you don’t get any real closure to the issue, both because of where it’s made and also because you don’t engage national interests to the same degree that you do in a national debate.

So we thought if we tried to find a middle road or a third path by working on a state-by-state basis, we could, on the one hand, reduce the size of the decision down to a manageable level, and on the other hand engage for the purposes of bringing better political closure to this, the one person who’s arguably elected to represent all the citizens of the state and that’s the governor, and that in a partnership with the governor we could get the right balance.

Maybe many forest plans today are now “too hot to handle” in terms of the GS-14 or 15 FS employee and being able to get political closure. What’s noteworthy about the S Cal forests is that there is no timber industry, so this is definitely a post-timber wars issue.

The Royal Forests- Congressman McClintock on the Forest Service

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John of England signs Magna Carta. Illustration from Cassell's History of England (1902)

Disagreement, up to and including violence, around land ownership and use is part of our Homo sapiens heritage. In one sense that is encouraging- it’s not likely that if we were better at our work of land management, all the conflict would go away. And it’s definitely cheery that we have moved away from violence.

Yesterday when I read this comment from David Beebe here

The clearer path begins by understanding the corporatization of Congress and the agencies it funds, corporatization of the media, and corporatization of civil society in general puts the best interests of the commons and the commoners at a distinct disadvantage.

It reminded me of something I had recently read- Congressman McClintock’s views of the commoners, particularly, these comments on the Royal Forests in this letter from Congressman Mclintock to Chief Tidwell.

You can find out more about Congressman McClintock’s views here.

Combined, these actions evince an ideologically driven hostility to the public’s enjoyment of the public’s land – and a clear intention to deny the public the responsible and sustainable use of that land.

Most recently, the Forest Service has placed severe restrictions on vehicle access to the Plumas National Forest, despite volumes of public protests. Supervisor Bill Connelly, Chairman of the Butte County Board of Supervisors writes that “The restriction applies to such activities as: collecting firewood, retrieving game, loading or unloading horses or other livestock, and camping.” He writes, “The National Forests are part of the local fabric. The roads within the National Forests are used by thousands of residents and visitors for transportation and recreation. These activities generate revenue for our rural communities, which are critical for their survival.”

This is not a small matter. The Forest Service now controls 193 million acres within our nation – a land area equivalent to the size of Texas.

During the despotic eras of Norman and Plantagenet England, the Crown declared one third of the land area of Southern England to be the royal forest, the exclusive preserve of the monarch, his forestry officials and his favored aristocrats. The people of Britain were forbidden access to and enjoyment of these forests under harsh penalties. This exclusionary system became so despised by the people that in 1215, five clauses of the Magna Carta were devoted to redress of grievances that are hauntingly similar to those that are now flooding my office.

Mr. Speaker, the attitude that now permeates the U.S. Forest Service from top to bottom is becoming far more reminiscent of the management of the royal forests during the autocracy of King John than of an agency that is supposed to encourage, welcome, facilitate and maximize the public’s use of the public’s land in a nation of free men and women.

After all, that was the vision for the Forest Service set forth by its legendary founder, Gifford Pinchot in 1905: “to provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people in the long run.”