conflict resolution

Shout-out to Peace Makers in Forest World!

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This WaPo op-ed from last Sunday  is by John Paul Lederach, a professor emeritus of international peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame.  It’s interesting that when we think about peace making or keeping, we mostly think about the absence of violence.  The most famous peace-seekers deal with armed conflicts (as well they should) and yet there are plenty of people who do this kind of work with disagreements way short of armed conflicts.

As I wrote yesterday, peacemaking is an interesting lens to look at our long-running forest conflicts.  In the op-ed:

First, we need to reach beyond our isolated bubbles. In other places, reaching out frequently started with a few people who had the imagination to take a small risk: They dared to open a conversation with their perceived enemies in their own community. This small step was the start of a meaningful journey.

Second, we have to rehumanize our adversaries. We must have the courage to confront dehumanizing language and behavior, especially when it comes from within our closest circles. For many, like the Improbables in Valledupar, these became guiding daily practices: Refuse to belittle others. Stay curious about their lives. Speak about your own deeply held convictions without blame, retreat or demonization.

Finally, we need to stick with it. We can’t just pull away when difficult issues emerge.We must engage on policy but also acknowledge deep-seated fears, historic wrongs and identity differences.People who learn to stay the course know that politics without violence is possible only when we stay connected. It’s hard, but not nearly as difficult as stopping a war.

The very notion of the Improbables suggests the unexpected can have transformative power. When former enemies jointly propose ideas, it shocks the system of toxicity. People can no longer react instinctively; they must stop and look twice. Even a short pause of curiosity opens potential for a more meaningful conversation.

That’s what we try to do here at TSW, but the idea and writing stakes are pretty low, since many of us have no political power to do, or not do, actions in the real world.

It is an opportunity, though, to give a big shout out to the people engaged in these peace-making processes, whether  in collaborative groups across the country, FACA committees, or other efforts.

Thank you all for what you do!  It’s hard work, for many it’s unpaid, and often little appreciated.

Resolving Forest Conflict: How Did the NWFP Do? Is Peace a Relevant Concept for Forest Disputes?

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Andy said in a comment:

Is it any wonder that the newly-elected President Clinton, who had promised during his campaign to resolve the nation’s thorniest environmental/jobs conflict of the late 20th century, would want a Forest Service chief up to the task. Undersecretary of Agriculture Jim Lyons was assigned the unenviable job of picking up the shattered pieces of national forest policy. Jim selected JWT as point person to lead the Forest Service out of the morass.

Sure Clinton promised to “resolve the issue” but he was a politician, and campaign promises are usually not worth the electrons used to write them down.  They are the epitome of what I used to call in the Forest Service “management by wishful thinking.” So here I’d like to ask the question “was the issue resolved?”  I would say … not.. we seem to be debating the same things as the early 90’s.

Which takes us back to the Utah lawsuit from yesterday.  Would there be a way to do some kind of “peace proposal” between the western states and the feds on the topic of federal lands?

What can we learn from the “peace proposal” that was the Northwest Forest Plan about the process of, and the success of, one very expensive and prolonged experiment in peace-making?

Many environmental groups were not satisfied with the NWFP and continue to litigate various projects that follow the NWFP.  So were the wrong people in the room for the agreement?  What would it mean to violate the terms of the agreement? It seems like that would be clear from the timber harvest side, but perhaps not so much from the environmental side.  Is it a case of the federal lands “quid pro nada” which is a systemic problem in which “protected lands” are not contested, but the “you can do that here” parts continue to be after the agreement? Or is the concept of peace irrelevant to these kinds of disputes?

If we go back to Chief Thomas’s restatement of classic Kohelet wisdom I posted this spring:

There is a time to fight. There is a time for all things under the sun. There is a time to make peace. I think the general environmental war related to the Forest Service is over. In reality, industry needs to abandon sponsoring “ghost dances” to bring back the buffalo—i.e., the good old days. Those days aren’t coming back. It is time for the environmentalists to ease up. They are not going to finish off those who extract natural resources. Now we’ve come to where we stand today. And it is time to ask, “What are some of the things that we could agree upon?”

People are answering that question at the forest level via collaborative groups and their “zones of agreement.”  And we can ask “if they can, why can’t higher levels?”  What is going on  that happens at the larger scales so that we can’t get broader scale agreements that stick?  My guess is that the higher level involves people who don’t care about peace.  ENGO’s are going for their max desires.  There is no reason to compromise for them, perhaps. Many politicians are beholden to political parties that want to milk, rather than resolve, disputes.  I’d be interested in what others think.

Maybe resolving conflict, or making peace, are impossible in our chunk of the world.

For historical purposes, let’s look at this San Francisco Chronicle via Chicago Tribune article from 1993.

Strangely, the article was “updated” in 2021. I bolded the “old growth” part, but that may have been “updated.” I suppose I should check the Wayback Machine.

President Clinton’s peace proposal for the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest was rejected instantly by both sides, with environmentalists declaring it “voodoo forestry” and timber cutters vowing to fight it in court.

Delivering the plan he promised three months ago at his Portland forest summit, Clinton proposed reducing timber harvests 75 percent from historic highs to better protect the spotted owl and other species and committing more than $1 billion toward easing the economic fallout.

The president insisted that his strategy balances jobs and nature and can be defended both legally and scientifically, but he readily conceded that it “may not make anybody happy.” The problem, he suggested, is that after “years of overcutting,” there is simply too little forest left.

“We have to play the hand we were dealt,” Clinton said. “Had this crisis been dealt with years ago, we might have a plan with a higher (timber) yield and with more . . . protected areas. We are doing the best we can with the facts as they now exist in the Pacific Northwest.”

Clinton’s proposal-key elements of which must be approved by Congress or the courts-represents a dramatic shift in priorities for 22 million acres of federal land stretching from Northern California through western Oregon and Washington.

Instead of dedicating areas primarily to timber-cutting or to preserving a single species such as the northern spotted owl, Clinton’s plan would create a 6.7 million-acre network of forest “reserves” where a wide range of species would be preserved and “very limited” logging allowed.

But far from breaking the timber deadlock, as he had promised in Portland to do, Clinton’s proposal set off a new round of recriminations that appeared to underscore the irreconcilability of the competing visions for the largest remaining stands of virgin forest in the lower 48 states.

Environmentalists, who have been uncompromising in their demands that all or most of the old growth be permanently protected, were furious that logging would be allowed in the proposed reserves, which encompass 80 percent of the old-growth stands.

“The Forest Service refers to this as new forestry,” said Joan Reiss, the Wilderness Society’s regional director in San Francisco. “But when you’re talking about ancient forests, new forestry is voodoo forestry. We need inviolate reserves and we got none of that at all.”

The timber industry, meanwhile, said the reduced harvests-from a high of more than 4 billion board-feet a year in the late 1980s to 1.2 billion board-feet a year in the coming decade-would be a fatal blow to timber towns in the region.

“The president didn’t make good on either half of his promise for a balanced solution. This ain’t balanced and this ain’t a solution,” said Mark Rey of the American Forest and Paper Association.

“There is nothing in this plan that gives any hope to the people in the Pacific Northwest who depend on the forest products industry.”

Rey said the industry will fight back in the courts, where it will challenge Clinton’s plan and press for immediate timber sales, and in Congress, where it will push amendments to weaken protections for the spotted owl and other wildlife under the Endangered Species Act.

The California Forestry Association, which represents the state’s timber industry, said it will file a petition seeking an end to the owl’s designation as a threatened species in Northern California, where the bird appears to be thriving in second-growth redwoods.

Although the timber industry predicted job losses numbering in the tens of thousands, the administration said its plan would directly affect only 6,000 jobs and would wind up creating more than 8,000 jobs in coming years, mostly in environmental restoration work.

The economic package, which calls for $1.2 billion in new spending over five years, must be approved by Congress, as must a proposed end to tax subsidies for the export of raw logs from private lands.

And now we’ve got NOGA and shooting owls.  Was there a better way?

From Frivolous Litigation to Western Headquarters Via Many Other Ideas: Westerman’s Bill: What’s In it and What Do You Think?

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Subtitle C actually says “addressing frivolous litigation” and Section 121 is titled “Commonsense Litigation Reform”

Here’s the text. We’re going to need help from lawyers out there..

a) IN GENERAL.—A court shall not enjoin a fireshed management project under this Act if the court determines that the plaintiff is unable to demonstrate that the claim 7 of the plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits.
8 (b) BALANCING SHORT- AND LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF FOREST MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES IN CONSIDERING INJUNCTIVE RELIEF.—As part of its weighing the equities while considering any request for an injunction that applies to any agency action as part of a fireshed management project under this Act, the court reviewing the agency action shall balance the impact to the ecosystem likely 15 affected by the fireshed management project of—
16 (1) the short- and long-term effects of under taking the agency action; against 18 (2) the short- and long-term effects of not undertaking the action.
20 (c) TIME LIMITATIONS FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF.—
21 (1) IN GENERAL.—Subject to paragraph (2), the length of any preliminary injunctive relief and stays pending appeal that applies to any agency action as part of a fireshed management project under this Act shall not exceed 30 days.

1 (2) RENEWAL.—
2 (A) IN GENERAL.—A court of competent  jurisdiction may issue one or more renewals of any preliminary injunction, or stay pending appeal, granted under paragraph (1).
6 (B) UPDATES.—In each renewal of an injunction in an action, the parties to the action shall present the court with updated information on the status of the fireshed management project.
11 (d) LIMITATIONS ON CLAIMS.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a claim arising under Federal law seeking judicial review of a fireshed management project  shall be barred unless—  such claim is filed not later than 120 days after the date of publication of a notice in the Federal Register of agency intent to carry out the proposed agency action;

This sounds like a time limit for filing.

19 (2) such claim is filed after the issuance of a record of decision or other final agency action with respect to the relevant proposed agency action; and

How could it be filed before the ROD is issued?

22 (3) such claim does not challenge the use of a categorical exclusion under this section.

I’m kind of lost in the negatives here. “a claim shall be barred unless it does not challenge the use of a CE? So claims about CE-hood would be barred? Under “this” what (?) section.

Section 122 sounds like the Cottonwood fix but maybe not.

ARBITRATION PILOT PROGRAM

This is always one of my favorites. People learn a lot from pilots. This one has a ceiling, no more than 15 projects per year per FS Region or BLM States. You could lower the numbers, but is anyone really against it? Apparently the results would not be subjected to judicial review, except “as 16 provided in section 10(a) of title 9, United States Code.” Maybe someone knows what that is.

COMMUNITY WILDFIRE RISK REDUCTION PROGRAM.

Then there’s a section on WUI. My friends who are involved in community wildfire programs tell me that this would be very useful

create a single, uniform application and portal for local communities seeking to apply for Federal financial assistance or 23 technical assistance programs targeted at reducing fire risk to communities

Also these:

SIMPLIFICATIONS.—In creating the portal under paragraph (1), the Secretaries and the Ad1ministrator shall seek to reduce the complexity and length of the application process.
18 (3) TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE.—The Secretary of the Interior shall provide technical assistance to communities looking to apply for financial assistance under the streamlined application and portal created under paragraph (1).

Of course, Congress can’t do that, but a really wild and crazy idea would be for States to try to simplify  procedures for funding as well and maybe try to harmonize with the feds..

Then there’s section 202 which seems to be about controlling management of fires for resource benefits. That’s probably worth its own post, if anyone wants to take a look.

A Community Wildfire Defense Research Program (expanding JFSP to include):

(1) different affordable building materials, including mass timber;
5 (2) home hardening;
6 (3) subdivision design and other land use planning and design;
8 (4) landscape architecture; and
9 (5) other wildfire-resistant designs for structures or communities, as determined by the Secretary.

And a Community Wildfire Defense Innovation Prize

A new CE for power line operation and maintenance:

“the development and approval of a vegetation management, facility inspection, and operation and maintenance plan submitted under section 512(c)(1) of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1772(c)(1)) by the Secretary concerned; and 11 (2) the implementation of routine activities conducted under the plan referred to in paragraph (1).

Plus a change to FLPMA from 10 to 50 feet of a power line for hazard trees.

Seeds of Success

I imagine Defense is included here as federal lands include Forest Service, some Interior agencies and DOD. The point seems to be enhance the domestic supply chain of native seeds, in a manner coordinated across agencies. It seems like it’s about native plants perhaps not including trees, as it appears to be BLM focused. I’d put them (trees and other natives) together somehow and get them coordinated.

Biochar Demonstration Projects and Biochar Competitive Grants. (more on this later)

Accurate Hazardous Fuels Reduction Reports

This approach sounds plausible to me, certainly it needs clarification and consistency. Many other groups, of various persuasions, have pointed out the problems with the current approach.

Public Private Wildfire Technology Deployment and Testbed Partnership
This seems like a mechanism for coordination among agencies to ensure real-world testing of new technologies. Hopefully, this will ensure that less USG funding is spent on random “sounds plausible” technologies, and gets them to field testing. Note that it includes say, thinning as a hazardous fuels reduction, so all our friends interested in mechanizing and improving marking and harvesting would be included.

(A) hazardous fuels reduction treatments or activities;
5 (B) dispatch communications;
6 (C) remote sensing, detection, and tracking;
8 (D) safety equipment; and
9 (E) common operating pictures or operational dashboards; and
11 (3) partner with each covered entity selected to participate in the Pilot Program with the appropriate covered agency to coordinate real-time and  on-the-ground testing of technology during wildland  fire mitigation activities and training.

GAO Study on Forest Service Policies

(A) the effectiveness of Forest Service wildland firefighting operations;
(B) transparency and accountability measures in the Forest Service’s budget and accounting process; and
(D) the suitability and feasibility of establishing a new Federal agency with the responsibility of responding and suppressing wildland 2 fires on Federal lands;

What happened to C? Also I’d have two studies, one that looked at the Interagency wildland firefighting and the idea of a new Federal Agency (why just FS?) and a separate one for FS budget transparency and accountability.

Forest Service Western Headquarters Study

It’s not clear to me whether this is to substitute for Regions or to add another layer of bureaucracy. Perhaps it will be clear in FS testimony tomorrow.

Summary: there are lots of interesting ideas in this bill.  It will be interesting to see the FS testimony.  What do you think?

Friday the 9th on the Flathead

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On June 9th, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed an appeal in a lawsuit against its revised forest plan.  The appeal involved questions about ESA consultation on the plan’s effects on grizzly bears, and the proper environmental baseline for the amount of roads used in the consultation process.  After the district court opinion found flaws in the analysis conducted for consultation, the Forest reinitiated consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service, which has now been completed.  The 9th Circuit held that the new biological opinion made that issue moot.  (A new lawsuit was filed against the new biological opinion, discussed here.)

However, Kurt Steele won’t be overseeing the Flathead Forest Management Plan. As of Friday, USFS Region 1 press officer Dan Hottle said Steele “was offered and accepted” a new post as deputy director at the regional office that involves “environmental planning,” according to the Flathead Beacon. It is unknown who will be Steele’s replacement.

This was also announced on June 9th, but I assume there is no connection between the Flathead Forest Plan and Steele’s move to the regional office forest planning staff (he wasn’t hired by the Flathead until after the plan was done).  However, there may be a connection to his work on Holland Lake (discussed most recently here), since it’s hard to imagine that a forest supervisor would consider a deputy position on a regional office planning staff to be a great career move.  That connection is denied by the Forest Service.

“There’s no correlation with this (personnel change) and Holland Lake,” Hottle said. However, he said he did not know whether Steele had initiated applying for the position or if the Forest Service offered it to him first. Hottle characterized the change in position as a “lateral move” with a salary that should stay the same.

This is interesting to me because the regional planning staff didn’t have a deputy director position when I left, and the current agency directory does not show that there is such a position to apply for.  It’s not unheard of for the agency to create a position to place someone where they will be out of the way, and I’ve observed that planning staffs tend to be seen as places to put people who need putting (and of course, anyone can be a planner).  Or maybe there is some kind of vindication going on because he will nominally be overseeing the revision of the Lolo National Forest Plan, and the Lolo is where a lot of the same people who oppose the Holland Lake development like to hang out.

 

 

 

 

 

A New Book on Wicked Problems by Professor Brian Head: With Flashbacks to Dave Iverson

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Some of you may remember Dave Iverson talking about “wicked problems”, in his Eco Watch Dialogues? At that site, I found this link to a 1999 article by Bruce Shindler and Lori Cramer of Oregon State University. In which they say:

many forest professionals were introduced to the term wicked problems in a provocative 1986 Journal of Forestry article by Allen and Gould who borrowed the phrase from the systems analysis research of (Rittel and Webber, 1973)

And of course, that was a while back.

In my hunt, I discovered that the EcoWatch Dialogues go all the way back to 1990, still on the web. Many fascinating articles and discussion. And here’s a link to a post by Dave on the topic on TSW in 2011.

So here we are in the 2020’s and the London School of Economics “Impact of Social Sciences” blog has a post by Brian Head discussing his new book “Wicked Problems in Public Policy“.  Head is Professor of Public Policy at the University of Queenland, Australia.   TSW readers are invited to review this book, which is open access (yay!). Some quotes from his blog post:

First is the well-known critique of rationalist claims that the policy process should be substantively based on rigorous ‘evidence’. In rebuttal, critics state that stakeholder interests and experience are crucial, that public policy decisions are ultimately political, and that accountability must rest with elected governments. Underpinning this are five common claims:

  • evidence is always incomplete, especially for complex and evolving issues;
  • evidence includes many forms of knowledge, which are often inconsistent;
  • evidence is always subject to value-laden interpretations, hidden or overt;
  • evidence is inevitably “cherry-picked” by governments and stakeholders to support their preferred positions; and
  • reliance on specialized expertise implies technocratic and undemocratic styles of decision-making.

The second key reason for the malaise is the rapid rise of mass communication channels that propagate misinformation, personal beliefs, and vilification of opponents. Polarisation intensifies in-group bias and provides excuses for ignoring alternative information. Partisan polarisation undermines community confidence in procedural fairness and legitimacy, which are crucial for trust in public institutions. In the face of this tsunami of propaganda and incivility, the enlightenment model of reasoned debate in the public sphere has been deeply wounded. In responding to this wave of ‘post-truth’ anti-science, the defenders of evidence-informed debate and civic education have created new networks to discuss strategy, share information, improve their communication of evidence-informed policy ideas, and develop new tools for fact-checking or reviewing the claims of partisan advocates.

(I think the humble Smokey Wire might be one of those “new networks”).

The third key reason for concern about the future of evidence-informed policymaking is that so many policy problems are intractable, controversial and turbulent. This is the domain of ‘wicked’ problems

The third key reason for concern about the future of evidence-informed policymaking is that so many policy problems are intractable, controversial and turbulent. This is the domain of ‘wicked’ problems, as outlined in Wicked Problems in Public Policy. Wicked problems are characterised by complex interactions, gaps in reliable knowledge, and enduring differences in values, interests and perspectives. Unfortunately, ‘more science’ cannot resolve these conflicting views, and therefore more data cannot directly help to de-politicize the partisan divide. Wicked problems include long-standing, yet continually evolving problems such as: refugees and immigration, human rights and inequalities, climate change, food security, water and energy security, biodiversity protection, terrorism, and the peaceful resolution of major disputes.

….

Finally, it is true that there are no neat and correct answers to wicked problems. They might not be solvable in the short term. But there are ways to better understand and manage them. For example, inclusive processes for considering the nature of the problems and possible paths toward improvement are often more beneficial than ideological solutions imposed by government. Good quality knowledge and analysis are always useful, but information alone cannot transform complex problems into simple solutions. Information-based strategies are only one important thread in the policy mix required to enable us to tackle the wicked features of complex and contentious problems.

………..

Each problem has a unique history, even though many problems closely interact with others (such as poverty, housing, health and education). Solutions are provisional and contingent. They are temporary political accommodations, depending not only on best available evidence but also on stakeholder perceptions and the capacity of leaders to negotiate shared goals.

……………

The case for using social experimentation and co-design processes is mainly pitched at the local level, rather designing mainstream national programs. These collaborative agendas and methods are very diverse. Choices need to be ‘fit for purpose’, working with relevant stakeholders and adapting to the nuances of each challenge. Collaborative and coordinated approaches are widely recommended, but the difficulties of successfully implementing such approaches are well known and skilled leadership is needed.

 

What struck me about this post is the fact that science folks are rewarded (by journal articles, media, and other professional rewards) for generalizing (does my study relate to a Ranger District in the Sierra? the Sierra? California? Dry western forests? North America? Global forest change or biodiversity?  As science becomes more models than empirical, more satellite data than on the ground, related to abstractions (defined by academics generally) such as climate change or biodiversity or regenerative agriculture.. does it drift away from having utility in solving wicked problems?

Politicians often prefer a quick fix or a simple ‘solution’ for managing a complex policy problem. In many cases, government leaders will attempt to impose their own preferred solution, either to appease their own supporter base (‘keeping promises’), or to close down the debate. This is often ineffective and sometimes counter-productive. In the long run, differences in stakeholder values and interests need to be acknowledged, and methods found to accommodate diversity and equity. This is a challenge for political leadership, as much as a challenge for evidence and expertise.

In the case of our issues, it is interesting that how many of these are seen through a national lens.  And as we often discuss, certainly federal lands belong to all people, but still perhaps the national or international view is not the best way to manage the set of wicked problems therein

Wyoming’s fractious by nature? Experience tells me otherwise

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Dr. Jessica Western, standing, guides the 30-plus members of the Chronic Wasting Disease Working Group through crafting final recommendations in September 2019. (Katie Klingsporn/WyoFile)

I really liked this op-ed  by Dr. Jessica Western of the University of Wyoming published in WyoFile.

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We who work in the field of conflict resolution have seen this process work repeatedly. In my 30 years of experience, recent examples include the Wyoming Game and Fish Department tackling the “wicked” (complex and controversial) topic of chronic wasting disease, Wyoming State Parks and Cultural Resources convening an Outdoor Recreation Taskforce that resulted in numerous recommendations and federal agencies and non-governmental organizations taking on collaborative problem-solving initiatives.

How do we make these collaboration processes as successful as possible? I often hear past “failures” cited as “evidence” that collaborative problem solving doesn’t work. We’ve had our struggles, yet in every case, having the conversation was laudable.

For example, the Wyoming Public Lands Initiative gave interested parties a chance to learn the level of agreement that can be reached regarding Wilderness Study Areas.  In some cases we learned that the available common ground is considerable, in others not. This effort reminds us that when a topic is very controversial, it can be better to frame it as “let’s explore the topic and related interests” first. If participants find such a learning process to be productive, then they can progress into agreement-making.

Another reason I’ve heard a process termed “unsuccessful” or worse, a “sham” is that the decision had already been made. In other words, the process was to meet the requirement of public engagement and did not influence the decision one way or another. No disagreement there: that is a sham process. Successful collaborative problem solving is based on the acronym FOTE: full, open and transparent exchange. An insincere public-engagement effort is not that. Fortunately, I hardly ever feel this is the case in Wyoming.

Collaborative process regarding the Teton Range bighorn sheep herd, convened by the Teton Range Bighorn Sheep Working Group. This resulted in the Teton Range Bighorn Sheep and Winter Recreation Strategy. (Jessica Western)

A process will founder with positional participants, i.e. when stakeholders have an outcome in mind and cannot/will not engage in a deliberation based on others’ interests or explore the reasons behind positions. And if participants can find a better alternative and find their needs met outside the collaborative process, this can also render the effort moot.

One component of Wyoming’s collaborative capacity is that we have strong conflict resolution expertise, including in the fields of natural resources, education and community health. Colleagues at the Ruckelshaus have worked with outdoor recreation collaboratives, facilitated the Wyoming Renewable Energy Siting Collaborative and the Pole Mountain Gateways project with the US Forest Service. There is more expertise in Jackson, Cody, Cheyenne, Gillette and other parts of Wyoming. These consultants and the Ruckelshaus Institute also offer a variety of training and education opportunities in collaborative skills and leadership.

Our federal land management partners are becoming increasingly adept at collaborative problem-solving. Challenges remain, however. Many of us believe federal agency leaders need to do more to make collaboration the way of doing business across all federal agencies. Nevertheless, our federal partners are another resource to value and use in collaborative problem-solving. Additionally, numerous state agencies and non-governmental organizations have demonstrated their value as excellent partners in collaborative processes.

Ultimately, Wyoming people are our biggest asset. They have clearly demonstrated willingness and ability to do the hard work to explore complex issues and find solutions. Now is the time to recognize this capacity, invest in it and use it. Now that the pandemic is subsiding, let’s get ready to go back into the room and work on our future together.

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Conservation groups should be able to lease land to protect it

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(I figured this from High Country News originally came from the Property and Environment Research Center, “the home of free market environmentalism,” and I wanted to make that clear.)

In much of the rural West, environmental groups have a reputation for suing to stop natural resource development. But some, like the Wyoming group, are attempting a new strategy: purchasing what they want to protect. The approach, sometimes called conservation leasing, could bolster “30 by 30,” the Biden administration’s ambitious conservation plan to conserve 30% of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030, without ending the leasing revenue that state governments have long derived from resource extraction.

The only problem: It’s often illegal.

These century-old “use it or lose it” requirements were designed to deter speculation and encourage white settlement. But today, they can bias resource management in favor of extraction.

We may have discussed this before, but not in the context of “American the Beautiful.”  (Note: they seem to assume that not all federal lands would automatically qualify, and that at least those committed to energy or grazing would not.)  Why not change the rules to allow non-consumptive/preservation interests to pay to prevent development (for a contractual time period that would count towards 30 x 30) on publicly owned lands?  I suppose a couple of answers are that 1) they shouldn’t have to pay, and 2) that money could be better used for something else.  But would just removing the legal barriers to allow that option to be considered in lieu of energy or grazing for areas where environmental protection is more valuable be that bad of a thing?

Possible Salvage Strategy for Dixie and Caldor Fires

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Since a battle for salvage projects is brewing, I think the Forest Service and the timber industry should consider my idea to get the work done, as soon as possible, under the rules, laws and policies, currently in force. It would be a good thing to ‘preempt’ the expected litigation before it goes to Appeals Court.

 

The Forest Service should quickly get their plans together, making sure that the project will survive the lower court battles. It is likely that such plans that were upheld by lower courts, in the past, would survive the inevitable lower court battles. Once the lower court allows the project(s), the timber industry should get all the fallers they can find, and get every snag designated for harvest on the ground. Don’t worry too much about skidding until the felling gets done. That way, when the case is appealed, most of Chad Hanson’s issues would now be rendered ‘moot’. It sure seems like the Hanson folks’ entire case is dependent on having standing snags. If this idea is successful, I’m sure that Hanson will try to block the skidding and transport of logs to the mill. The Appeals Court would have to decide if skidding operations and log hauling are harmful to spotted owls and black-backed woodpeckers.

 

It seems worth a try, to thin out snags over HUGE areas, while minimizing the legal wranglings.

Timber Wars Peace Breaking Out in John Day, Oregon: New York Times Op-ed

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Thanks to Bob Sproul for finding this New York Times story about Susan Jane Brown and efforts to reach consensus around logging on the Malheur National Forest by Nichols Kristof. Since it’s so relevant, I’m posting the entire piece. I do like the idea that our humble forest work could “offer lessons for a divided country.” It’s also interesting that this is posted as an opinion, while other pieces, which seem similar to me (interviews with people supplemented by statistics), are counted as news stories. The comments are also interesting; I see some from three hours ago, but it says they are now closed. Susan Jane Brown, member of our own TSW community, plays a prominent (and dare I say heroic) role in the story.

April 10, 2021
JOHN DAY, Ore. — One of the most venomous battles in our polarized nation is the one that has unfolded between loggers and environmentalists in timber towns like this one in the snow-capped Blue Mountains of Eastern Oregon.

Yet, astonishingly, peace has broken out here. Loggers and tree-huggers who once loathed and feared each other have learned to hold their noses and cooperate — and this may have saved the town. It may also offer lessons for a divided country.

The timber industry, by far the biggest employer in John Day, survives here only because environmentalists led by Susan Jane Brown, a Portland lawyer, fought to save these workers’ jobs by keeping chain saws active. John Shelk, who owns the town’s sawmill, and might be expected to eat environmental lawyers for breakfast, says simply, “Susan Jane is my hero.”

This collaboration between environmentalists and loggers is often grumpy, incomplete and precarious, but it’s also inspiring. It offers America a model of a process to sit down with antagonists, seek common ground, register progress (punctuated with eye rolls and moans) and knit this country back together.

The timber peace process began in 2003 at a bitter meeting over forest policy. Loggers were furious at Brown for having halted logging in local national forests by suing to protect species like woodpeckers and redband trout and by tying the U.S. Forest Service in procedural knots — but they were also desperate to save their livelihoods. A delegation of burly woodsmen approached Brown, who is 5-foot-2, and invited her to go out into the forest with them.

“My life flashed before my eyes,” Brown told me. But she took a deep breath, overcame her fears and eventually spent three days with the loggers (she brought a very large friend as a bodyguard), visiting forests and arguing about whether trees should be cut.

“It was very tense,” she remembered. But while the two sides didn’t agree, each was surprised to find the other not entirely diabolical.

“We thought, ‘Well, we haven’t killed each other, so maybe we should keep talking and let’s see what happens,’” she said. In 2006 they formalized the dialogue by naming it Blue Mountains Forest Partners.

The word “partners,” though, was mostly aspirational. The timber industry was collapsing, with a 90 percent plunge in the harvest from national forests in Oregon between the 1980s and the 2000s. Workers were losing well-paying jobs and in some places the human toll was catastrophic. I wrote recently about an Oregon friend of mine, Mike Stepp, whose life disintegrated into homelessness and early death when he couldn’t follow his dad into a good sawmill or factory job. Brown says that back when she started to talk with the loggers she didn’t really think of the human cost.

“My attitude was, ‘You deserved it,’” she said. “‘You cut down all the old growth.’”

John Day reciprocated the hostility. The area was already deeply conservative — it had voted overwhelmingly to withdraw from the United Nations — and the closure of two of its three sawmills left people fearful and furious.

Then, with almost no new logs coming in, Shelk announced that he would have to close the last sawmill, just as he had already closed his two other sawmills in Eastern Oregon. The entire town was teetering.

Yet this was also a crisis for environmentalists. In their meetings with the foresters, Brown and her colleagues had gradually been persuaded that some logging was necessary to make the forests healthy again.

That’s because nearby forests were dangerously overgrown. For thousands of years, fires had burned the forests every decade or so, clearing out the underbrush but not harming large trees. Decades of fire suppression had ended that natural balance, leaving the forests full of tinder just when climate change was also making them drier and hotter.

“This is not natural,” Pam Hardy, who works with Brown at the Western Environmental Law Center, told me as we walked through a national forest full of saplings and brush west of John Day. If a fire broke out in a place like this, she explained, there was so much fuel that the fire would burn hot and incinerate everything — destroying forests, rather than keeping them healthy.

The best hope to revive the forests, Hardy and Brown concluded, was to hire loggers to clear out small trees — and that meant there had to be a sawmill to take the logs. “I need the mill,” Brown explained.

So the environmentalists and loggers joined forces. With the help of Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, they won a 10-year stewardship contract to subsidize forest thinning and restoration of the traditional landscape, and this saved the mill and kept the town alive.

“Without her, we wouldn’t be,” said Mark Webb, a county commissioner. “It’s as simple as that.”

Yet this kind of cooperation is brutally difficult. Small logs are less profitable for the sawmill than large ones, and many people on all sides see those participating in the dialogue as sellouts.

Webb, who has a Ph.D in philosophy but was drawn to rural spaces, joined the forestry collaborative, as the process is called, but instead of being rewarded for saving the mill, he was defeated in his re-election bid. Hardy was nudged out of another environmental organization for her openness to logging to reduce fire danger. And Shelk, the owner of the mill and an active member of the collaborative, says, “I’m kind of an outcast in the timber industry.”

There are other forest collaboratives around Oregon that are also trying to sustain dialogue between loggers and environmentalists, with varying degrees of success and frustration. In John Day, the group is tussling over how much salvage logging to allow after forest fires, and how many roads should be allowed in the national forests. But members are making progress, and Brown has built a weekend home in John Day.

What advice do they offer for bridging hostilities and creating a peace process? A starting point is finding people from each side who are equipped with humility and empathy. Then when disputes arise, both sides need to agree to defer to science — and if the science doesn’t exist, then to conduct experiments to gather evidence. They say it doesn’t hurt if after meetings everyone relaxes over dinner together.

“It helps to have alcohol, and it helps to have food,” Brown said.

I normally cover people who are exchanging insults, occasionally gunfire. So there’s something exhilarating about being in Brown’s home in John Day, with loggers and environmental lawyers arguing amiably around a dinner table, antagonists who have also become friends.

They roll their eyes in fond exasperation at things the others say, and across town, because of them, the sawmill is still spitting out boards and keeping John Day humming. Maybe there’s something the rest of the country can learn from this handful of sellouts who saved a town.