Planning

Letter to Sec Vilsack Questions Nez Perce-Clearwater Planning Process

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Summer Solstice sunset on the Clearwater National Forest, Idaho. Photo by Matthew Koehler.
Summer Solstice sunset on the Clearwater National Forest, Idaho. Photo by Matthew Koehler.

The following letter was sent to Secretary Vilsack on February 28, 2013 by Friends of the Clearwater and eleven other conservation groups. To view a pdf copy of this letter, and to see the names of all the conservation groups that signed onto it, click here.

Dear Secretary Vilsack:

The undersigned represent non-profit conservation organizations that have been heavily involved in national forest issues, including forest planning. We are writing to express serious concerns with the way the revision of the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests Plan(s) is taking place. As an early adopter of the new National Forest Management Act (NFMA) regulations, these two merging national forests will be a model for how Forest Plans are revised in the future.

Introduction

We request that you halt the current planning process, because it is being inappropriately fast-tracked; gives disproportionate voice to local special interests; does not properly incorporate public involvement; undercuts NEPA; and appears to purposely circumvent the just released and still draft directives for the new Planning Rule.

By way of background, these two national forests comprise about 4 million acres of some of the most remote and spectacular country in the lower 48 states. These forests are home to wolves, salmon, fisher, bull trout, wolverines and grizzlies (one was illegally shot in 2007 in the North Fork Clearwater Basin). All or portions of the Gospel Hump, Selway-Bitterroot, Hells Canyon (managed by the Wallowa-Whitman) and Frank Church-River of No Return Wildernesses are found in these national forests, as are the Lochsa and Selway Wild and Scenic Rivers.

There are several problems that we see with the Forest Plan revision as it is proceeding to date. They encompass agency capacity, public involvement, and compliance with our nation’s environmental laws.  An additional concern that overlays the entire process is the apparent devolution of public land management and decision-making to local and/or private special interests. All citizens have equal footing to participate in the revisions of these Forest Plans, and the public involvement process must not be “frontloaded” to render NEPA a pro-forma exercise

Administrative Issues

The Forest Service lacks the capacity to produce high quality plans through this fast-track process. The agency is clearly over-extended, in part because of the combination of the two forests into the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests, which is being done mainly for funding reasons. This is effectively doubling the workload for agency staff, and revising these Forest Plans now will only exacerbate the problem. In addition, this process attempts to merge two existing, quite different, forest plans into one–a daunting task under the best of circumstances that will not be improved with a fast-track approach.

The concept behind Forest Plan revision is just that–a revision of an existing Plan. Yet the current process seems instead to be erasing all previous information and lessons learned to create an entirely new Plan. While the required Forest Plan monitoring on both of these national forests has not been up to par, it does provide information valuable to the Forest Plan revision effort. The Forest Service appears to believe otherwise, and failed to link years of prior monitoring and the need for Forest Plan revision in the initial round of meetings.

It is also unclear as to how the Forest Service intends to use the Analysis of the Management Situation (AMS) prepared for the earlier revision process.  The public was told at the initial round of meetings the AMS was being revised in an ongoing effort. To proceed with public involvement and plan preparation when the revised “assessment” (the new term for AMS) has not been completed is to put the cart before the horse.

Funding Issues

In a meeting last year–attended some of us, which included both regional and national ecosystem planning staff–the Forest Supervisor stated there is adequate funding to revise these two Forest Plans on the fast track. This money is apparently being spent on a consultant revising the two Plans and University of Idaho facilitators. While we are not questioning the qualifications of these consultants–we are concerned about three issues.

First, the outsourcing of agency functions devolves national forest management and decision-making. Second, we seriously question whether this Forest Plan revision can be done cheaply and efficiently by outsourcing. Third, we question the agency’s funding priorities when it comes to fast-tracking the revision of the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests Plans as these two national forests have serious funding problems for campgrounds and other important programs. Blaming congressional allocation for this apparent funding imbalance seems disingenuous given the agency’s remarkable flexibility in redistributing funds, due in large part to the Forest Service’s ever-changing and inscrutable accounting process.

Public Involvement

The public involvement process under the new NFMA regulations is very confusing. The Forest Service has sent mixed signals about the collaborative process, which has been portrayed by the agency as a pre-NEPA public involvement process.

Communication surrounding the planning process showed an inappropriate level of involvement by local special interests.  Five initial public meetings were held on the revision of the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest Plans: Four in Idaho and one in Montana. Aside from the serious omissions of the major populations centers of Missoula, Montana and Spokane, Washington–two areas where citizens recreate on the Clearwater National Forests in particular–the meetings that were held generated considerable concern among the public.

These initial meetings were hosted by the local county commissioners, sending the signal that the counties, which represent less than 1/10th of one percent of the American public, are running the show. The card sent out about the meetings came from the Forest Service, and yet the press releases came from the counties, creating the impression that local government entities are in charge of the forest plan revision. This is completely unacceptable–the federal agency in charge cannot simply step back and endow local special interests with the power to shape public policy with regard to federal lands.

The pre-NEPA planning process undercuts the critical role of NEPA.  The PowerPoint presentation given at the meetings stated that the so-called collaborative process would, “Try to resolve issues before formal plan and NEPA.”  Apparently, this is what is meant by the “pre-NEPA” work. The purpose of scoping under NEPA, however, is to identify issues. How can NEPA be anything more than a pro-forma exercise under this scenario where the “collaborative group” resolves issues before they are identified in scoping?

It is unreasonable to place Forest management and the time commitment it demands in the hands of self-selected volunteer citizen-advocates.  The Forest Service apparently sees two unequal classes of citizens:(1) “stakeholders” who have had time to participate in the three-day summit and then subsequent working groups, whom the Forest Service refers to as “involved;” (2) those who participate fully in the only legitimate and legally required public involvement process via NEPA, are not considered involved, but merely “informed.”

Citizens engaged in the NEPA process have the right to expect that decisions will be made after an objective analysis of alternatives. Participation in a pre-NEPA collaborative could lead to insider decision-making or the implication that these participants’ ideas will get priority over input from the NEPA process itself

As reported in the press, the Forest Supervisor told the public that this revision effort would “get out ahead of” Washington DC, since the directives for implementing the new NFMA regulations have yet to be completed in final form. Frankly, it seems to us patently inappropriate for a Forest Supervisor to inveigh against the federal government, even mildly, in order to appeal to anti-government sentiment. This only underscores our concern that this process is driven by local, special interests.

Forest Plan Substance

In addition to the process for this Forest Plan revision, we would also like to address the substance of the Clearwater and Nez Perce National Forest Plans. Currently, these plans provide some accountability–with measurable, enforceable standards and required monitoring tied to on-the-ground projects. We are concerned that the new NFMA regulations, and the approach being taken here, will lessen accountability in terms enforceable standards and required monitoring.

Summary

In summary, the revision for the Nez Perce-Clearwater Forest Plans is taking the wrong track. With private and university consultants handling the process, and with counties taking the lead at the initial meetings, it appears national forest management is being devolved to private and special interests at the local scale. National forests were established precisely because there is an overriding national interest that is a counterweight to local, special interests.

We also would like a clear explanation of what the Forest Service believes is the difference between the normal NEPA public involvement process and the pre-NEPA collaborative process in the new rule.

Given the challenges facing the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests, we believe it is in the public interest to delay the revision until the directives have been issued in final form and it is clear the current planning rule will remain in effect. The Supervisor’s intention to “get out ahead” of the directives is improper. Alternatively, revising the two plans under the 1982 regulations could alleviate some of these concerns.

We look forward to your response.

Wildfire Risk Management on a Landscape with Public & Private Ownership: Who Pays for Protection?

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We’ve had these sorts of discussions here before in regards to people building homes in fire-prone forests with an expectation that the federal government (and US taxpayers) will provide funding for fuel reduction activities.  A new(ish) research paper provides another look at the issue.

Abstract: Wildfire, like many natural hazards, affects large landscapes with many landowners and the risk individual owners face depends on both individual and collective protective actions. In this study, we develop a spatially explicit game theoretic model to examine the strategic interaction between landowners’ hazard mitigation decisions on a landscape with public and private ownership. We find that in areas where ownership is mixed, the private landowner performs too little fuel treatment as they ‘‘free ride’ —capture benefits without incurring the costs—on public protection, while areas with public land only are under-protected. Our central result is that this pattern of fuel treatment comes at a cost to society because public resources focus in areas with mixed ownership, where local residents capture the benefits, and are not available for publicly managed land areas that create benefits for society at large. We also find that policies that encourage public expenditures in areas with mixed ownership, such as the Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003 and public liability for private values, subsidize the residents who choose to locate in the high-risk areas at the cost of lost natural resource benefits for others.

Shoshone Forest Recreationists Finding Common Ground

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If local recreationists can get along to support a recreation agenda, then why not national recreation interests? What’s up with that?

See this article about the Shoshone plan and recreationists…
Here’s the article and below is an excerpt..

Wind River Front officials say the group represents a broad range of interests. Some, like Wild Iris, are directly affected by recreation on the forest. Others, like Hudson’s carpentry business, thrive in the area because people choose to live in Lander for the nearby recreational opportunities on the forest.

There’s no specific agenda the group is pushing due to the varying interests among recreationists, according to Hudson. For instance, some want less motorized use, while those who ride ATVs are looking for more trails. Some backcountry skiers want a section of Togwotee Pass closed to snowmobiling, whereas snowmobilers oppose such a ban. All of these interests are represented by Wind River Front.
Wyoming map of federal jurisdiction

A map detailing the jurisdiction of federal agencies in Wyoming. Conflicted interests are common among Wind River Front’s varied membership, so the group has chosen not to advocate one recreational agenda over another. (Wikimedia — click to enlarge)

Issues that are divisive among the group will be left out of the group’s official comments to the Forest Service, and individuals are encouraged to submit their own comments on the issues. As a result, while the group’s comments won’t oppose additional motorized use — including proposed connectors to create loops for ATVs — they will ask for better enforcement to keep motorized use on legal trails, Hudson said.

As a group, Wind River Front will submit some comments representing everyone in the network, but it will be more general, Hudson said. One thing everyone seems to agree on is that they want only a small area set aside for surface occupancy and oil and gas development.

Lawsuit filed against CE logging in IRA, WSA, RNA and Old-Growth

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We’re discussed the appropriate, or inappropriate, use of Categorical Exclusions (CE’s) by the Forest Service in the past (here and here).  What about a CE for a 17,000 acre logging project that includes logging within Inventoried Roadless Areas, Wilderness Study Areas, Research Natural Areas, and old growth forests? Is a CE really an appropriate level of analysis and public input for such a project?   Clearly some folks think not.  The following is a press release from the Alliance for Wild Rockies and the Native Ecosystems Council.  A copy of the complaint is here.

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council filed a lawsuit on Friday in Federal District Court against the Forest Service to stop the Little Belt Mountain Hazard Tree Removal Project in the Lewis and Clark National Forest.  The Forest Service plans to log 17,000 acres on National Forest Lands, including logging in Inventoried Roadless Areas, Wilderness Study Areas, Research Natural Areas, and old growth forests.  The Forest Service authorized these activities under a Categorical Exclusion from the environmental analyses required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

“Up until now the Forest Service has done a full environmental analysis on large roadside logging projects,” said Mike Garrity, Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.  “We didn’t oppose the agency on those projects, but in this case the agency is excluding itself from the requirement to keep the public informed of the environmental effects and to provide public input on the proposal.  Categorical Exclusions were intended for purposes such as mowing the lawn at the Ranger Station or painting outhouses, not logging over 17,000 acres.”

“Herbicide spraying and logging will occur in several already degraded watersheds and along several streams that are considered ‘impaired’ due to sediment,” Garrity explained.  “These areas provide habitat for the westslope cutthroat trout and the Western toad, both are considered ‘sensitive species’ on the Forest and both will be impacted by logging – especially when you consider approximately 1,700 acres of logging and herbicide spraying will occur within 150 feet of streams.  The result will be to dump more sediment into already degraded streams where these native fish are struggling to survive”.

“I have recently driven roads in the Little Belt Mountains and there is evidence of the mountain pine beetle epidemic, but it is in patches, not forest wide,” explained Sara Johnson, Director of Native Ecosystems Council and former Gallatin National Forest biologist.  “Where the beetles have killed trees next to the road, firewood cutters have already done a good job cutting them down.  It’s a mystery why the Forest Service wants to log 17,000 acres of so-called ‘hazardous trees’ when there isn’t a hazard. The only hazard will be to the native wildlife when 17,000 acres of important habitat is clearcut and to the taxpayers who have to pay for it.”

“There are already massive infestations of noxious weeds, such as thistle and houndstongue, along roads,” Johnson said.  “They can’t control the weed problem now and logging will just make it worse.”

“The Canada lynx, listed as ‘threatened’ under the Endangered Species Act, has historical presence on the Forest including recent sightings in the project area. Lynx, wolverine, black-backed woodpecker, Northern goshawk, Western toad, and Northern three-toed woodpecker all are known to occur in the area and their numbers will be further reduced by these massive clearcuts,” concluded Johnson.

“We support logging to protect public safety,” Garrity said.  “But the public needs to be kept informed to ensure that the Federal Government is following the law. The public needs to be shown that there is a real safety hazard and not just an imagined excuse for more subsidized logging.

“It is unfortunate that we have to ask the court to intervene to force the Federal Government to let the public be involved in the management of our National Forests, Garrity concluded.  “But in the end, we firmly believe the public should have a say in the management of public lands…even if we have to go to court to get it.”

Conservationists Fight Timber Industry’s NFMA Lawsuit Seeking To Limit Role Of Science

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The Western Environmental Law Center, on behalf of Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center and Oregon Wild, filed a motion today in federal district Court in Washington D.C. to fight a lawsuit that aims to drastically limit the use of science to help manage our national forests.

Led by the timber industry, a coalition of industry groups filed suit on August 31 to challenge the new planning rule for the national forest system, designed provide for sustainable management of 193 million acres of national forests across the country. The purpose of the industry group’s lawsuit is to prevent the Forest Service from using “best available science” and ecosystem management tools to guide decisions affecting national forests, and to prohibit the agency from maintaining “viable populations” of wildlife, among other legal claims.

Conservation groups are seeking to intervene in this lawsuit in order to ensure the use of sound science in decisions affecting the public’s air and water, and our children’s natural heritage.

“These industry groups have a scary vision for our national forest,” stated Joseph Vaile, Program Director for the Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center (KS Wild) an Oregon-based conservation organization. “Never before have we seen extraction industries so clearly state that they oppose the use of science on our National Forests. Through this suit these groups hope the keys to our national forests are handed over to private industry so they can be turned into private tree-farms for their own benefit.”

“It comes as no surprise that the timber industry would like to see our National Forests managed for logging but it becomes truly bizarre when the timber industry must argue against science and in favor of crony capitalism in order to achieve their desired result,” said Doug Heiken, Conservation and Restoration Coordinator for Oregon Wild, another organization intervening.

Pete Frost, attorney for the conservation groups, stated, “This lawsuit, if successful, could effectively ban conservation biology as a basis to help craft how we manage our national forests. It is a throw-back to when only logging, grazing, and mining mattered.”

Five Commandments of Decision Making Under Uncertainty

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Ran across this in Roger Pielke, Jr.’s blog, here. He linked to a paper by Haldane and Madouros at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium. Here is the link to that paper and an excerpt below, but check out Roger’s summary, or the original paper or both. Does this remind you of planning? Fire suppression?

(e) Complex rules and defensive behaviour
There is a final, related but distinct, rationale for simple over complex rules. Complex rules may cause
people to manage to the rules, for fear of falling foul of them. They may induce people to act defensively,
focussing on the small print at the expense of the bigger picture.
Studies of the behaviour of doctors illustrate this pattern (Gigerenzer and Kurzenhäuser (2005)). Fearing
misdiagnosis, perhaps litigation, doctors are prone to tick the boxes. That may mean over-diagnosing drugs
or over-submitting patients to hospital. Both are defensive actions, reducing risks to the doctor. But both are
a potential health hazard to the patient. For example, submitting patients to hospital increases significantly
their risk of secondary infection. Hospitals are, after all, full of sick people.
Doctors unencumbered by a complex rulebook will have fewer incentives to act defensively. They may also
be better able to form their own independent judgements when diagnosing medical problems, using their
accumulated experience. That ought to more closely align a doctor’s risk incentives with their patient’s. The
same is likely to be true of other professions, from lawyers to policemen to bank supervisors.
Of course, simple rules are not costless. They place a heavy reliance on the judgement of the decisionmaker,
on picking appropriate heuristics. Here, a key ingredient is the decision-maker’s level of experience,
since heuristics are learned behaviours honed by experience. A dog will outperform a puppy at frisbeecatching
because it has had time to fine-tune its “gaze heuristic”. An expert baseball player or cricketer will
outperform a novice sportsman for the same reason. So too will an experienced doctor or detective or fund
manager or shopkeeper.

And from Roger:

A focus on simple vs. complex analyses and decisions that are based on heuristics rather than optimization runs counter to the grain of conventional wisdom across many areas, from financial regulation to environmental protection.

One important point to note is that their paper uses two conflicting definitions of “uncertainty.” One definition of uncertainty is equivalent to “risk” or the odds of a particular outcome from a known distribution of outcomes. If I bet $1,000 that the next roll of a die will turn up 6, I am taking a risk on an uncertain outcome. A second definition of uncertainty (“Knightian uncertainty”) is equivalent to what I typically call “ignorance” following from the work of John Maynard Keynes, as discussed in The Honest Broker. These two definitions are obviously not referring to the same concept, and thus are subject to confusion unless care in taken in the interpretation. (I discuss uncertainty-as-ignorance at length in this recent paper in PDF).

Academics and policy makers typically like to focus on uncertainty-as-risk rather than uncertainty-as-ignorance as the former is more readily subject to easy quantification and manipulation. This focus reinforces the values of academia (where physics-envy runs rampant through the social sciences) and the desire of politicians to make concrete-looking claims backed by authoritative-sounding expertise. The result can be to create a zone of ignorance surrounding our decisions. Not surprisingly, bad decisions can result.

I was thinking of climate change strategies and also appreciated EO’s comment #12:

Decision making is a process. Before I retired I had to do a lot of decision making under uncertainty. The golden rule is ” The correctness of decision made under uncertainty is uncertain”. The first commandment is: Dont get emotional, dogmatic of the decision made under uncertainty. It could be wrong. Second commandment: keep an open mind, listen to critics, and other views because they might be right and be prepared to modify and even make a complete U turn or abandon a decision as more facts are available and uncertainty is reduced.
Third-keep enough reserve that if required to modify or alter the decision there are enough resources to work. Fourth commandment- hedge or take insurance on such that if the decision turns out to be a complete failure, you could start again. Fifth commandment- execute the decision with a political will and with confidence that the correct decision has been made. The decision could be correct but it will fail because of lack of confidence

Judge dismisses timber industry lawsuit, maintains Tongass Forest Protection

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If you’ve been reading this blog for a few years you’ve likely noticed a significant amount of hand-wringing from some folks anytime conservation groups look to hold the U.S Forest Service accountable through the federal court system.  However, what I find somewhat interesting is that when the timber industry and their allies file a lawsuit against the Forest Service the type of hand-wringing we usually see directed at conservation groups is mysteriously non-existent.

Readers may recall that last week we highlighted a Courthouse News Service article, in which an editor claimed that a lawsuit against the Forest Service’s new National Forest Management Act planning rules by an assortment of timber industry, off-road/ATV and grazing interests was the “the most obnoxious lawsuit I saw this week.”

Well, it turns out that the Courthouse News Service had another article last week which frequent commenter and reader David Beebe was kind enough to pass along.  Highlights from the article are below, or you can read the entire article here.

A federal judge dismissed claims filed by the Alaskan timber and building industries that a 2008 forest plan reducing the amount of commercial forestland in the Tongass National Forest violated federal law.

The Alaska Forest Association and the Southern Southeast Alaska Building Industries Association sued U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack and the U.S. Forest Service in 2008 over the Forest Service’s plan to reduce the amount of land available for commercial foresting from 2.4 million acres to 670,000.  The revised plan also adopted an adaptive strategy for managing lands for timber sale that the industries said reduced the acreage capable of supporting financially feasible timber sales to approximately 103,000 acres.

But because of a previous challenge to the plan filed by the Southeast Conference and several other Alaskan cities and municipal organizations that failed in federal court, U.S. District Judge John Bates dismissed this challenge under the legal doctrine of Res judicata, which prohibits re-filing legal claims that could have been litigated in prior actions.

The Alaska Forest Association, as it turns out, is a part of the Southeast Conference, and supported its similar litigation against the Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Forest Service over the plan.
   The Forest Association, or AFA, unsuccessfully argued that because the Southeast Conference wasn’t aware it was representing the AFA, the doctrine does not apply.

“Plaintiffs’ argument is dubious on these facts,” stated Judge Bates. “AFA submitted an affidavit supporting Southeast Conference’s standing argument … which should have alerted the Southeast Conference plaintiffs that they were representing AFA.”

Courthouse News Service on Timber Industry’s “obnoxious” NFMA lawsuit

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Last week we highlighted the fact that an assortment of timber industry, off-road/ATV and grazing interests had filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service’s new National Forest Management Act planning rules.  Well, on Friday, Robert Kahn, editor of the Courthouse News Service, wrote a very interest column taking the timber and cattle industries, as well as politicians, to task for what he characterized as “the most obnoxious lawsuit I saw this week.”  You can read the entire column here, or check out the excerpts below.

Scientists are better than politicians because scientists want to know if they’re wrong.   Politicians – and their friends in the timber and cattle industries – don’t give a damn. So long as the money rolls in: to them.

I see 5,000 lawsuits a week editing the Courthouse News page – stories of rape, murder, drugs, perversion, official corruption – revolting stuff.  But the most obnoxious lawsuit I saw this week was from the timber and cattle industries, which claimed that scientists exert “improper influence” on the U.S. Forest Service, by seeking ecological sustainability above industry profits in National Forests.

Really. I’m not kidding.

Citing an 1897 law, a bunch of blood-sucking lobbyists with noble-sounding names such as the American Forest Resource Council, the Public Lands Council, [Montana Wood Products Association, BlueRibbon Coalition] and the California Forestry Association claimed that National Forests should be “‘controlled and administered’ for only two purposes – to conserve water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the American people – and not for aesthetic, environmental, recreational, or wildlife-preservation purposes.”

These public-land-dependent vampires claimed that this pathetically limp, spineless administration “is causing current and threatened injury” to industry by demanding ecological sustainability in forest management.

Isn’t that great?

Can you imagine anything more stupid, petty and grasping for the timber industry than suing the Forest Service for trying to preserve National Forests?

Their insane federal lawsuit claims – I’m not kidding – that the Forest Service “effectively trivializes public participation by forbidding decisions based on non-scientific information, which is what the great majority of public comments will contain. … The rule gives ‘scientists’ improper influence on natural resource management decisions, and skews multiple-use management by improperly elevating scientific information as the centerpiece of forest management.”

Notice how they put “scientists” in sneer quotes?

These industries have powerful friends in Congress, willing to howl this nonsense into our ears for as long as it takes until we stop paying attention, and they can grease it through.

Republicans in Congress live today, in great part, by attacking science: Darwin, genetics, climate change, medical research, even basic arithmetic are all nefarious plots against God and America.

But let’s remind you, and Congress too, if it can read: Science works because it’s based on facts. Scientists publish their research in journals because they want to see if someone can prove them wrong.

U.S. politicians today, more than at any time in our history except perhaps before the Civil War, not only do not care if they are wrong, they want to punch you in the mouth if you suggest it, and are willing to wreak untold damage upon anyone at all in the name of their myths.

Video: Wyoming’s Noble Basin – Too Special to Drill

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The Center for American Progress and the Sierra Club have released a series of three short video documentaries, “Public Lands, Private Profits,” outlining threats to public lands.  Today, we’ll highlight “Too Special to Drill,” which looks at how proposed natural gas drilling would impact the pristine Noble Basin section of the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

Forest Service Awards One of Largest-ever Timber Contracts to Agency Insiders

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From the Center for Biological Diversity:

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. CBD photo.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.— The U.S. Forest Service awarded one of the largest-ever tree-cutting contracts in the history of the national forest system today to a timber company represented by a retired Forest Service official. While he was a federal employee, the official was the agency’s liaison to that same company’s timber-sale inquiries in the same region. The contract calls for timber harvesting on approximately 300,000 acres of ponderosa pine in northern Arizona as part of the Four Forests Restoration Initiative, a showcase forest restoration project for the Obama administration under what’s known as “the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Act” and program.

Speaking of today’s contract award, Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigns director with the Center for Biological Diversity, which has led the charge to reform logging in the Southwest, said, “The decision stinks of cronyism.”

“Much of the Southwest’s last old growth was liquidated on Marlin Johnson’s watch during his years at the Forest Service—it was wrong then and it’s wrong now, and the fact that Mr. Johnson is wearing a different hat this time underlines that fact,” he continued.

During his tenure as the southwestern region’s silviculturist, Marlin Johnson was one of the agency’s liaisons for Pioneer Forest Products’ timber-sale inquiries; within a year of retirement, in 2008, Johnson began representing Pioneer’s inquiries to the same Forest Service office in which he had worked. Since then, representing Pioneer in Four Forest Restoration Initiative stakeholder meetings with the Forest Service, Johnson has openly pushed to log old-growth trees and forests.

As regional silviculturist Johnson presided over an attempt to loosen regional limits on logging mature and old trees and forests in Arizona and New Mexico without public or environmental review. Without officially changing the forest plans that guide management of the public’s forests, and over the concern of staff and other agencies about lawfulness and impacts to wildlife, the Forest Service’s southwestern regional office under Johnson tried to sharply reduce the amount of mature and old forest the agency is required to leave on the landscape after logging.

The southwestern region has tried to follow this guidance since Johnson’s retirement, and because logging intensities violate wildlife protections in forest plans, several of those timber sales have crumbled under internal review prompted by administrative objections from the Center. In its collaboration on the Four Forests initiative, which has suffered at the hands of regional micromanagement, the Center has warned the Forest Service not to deploy Johnson’s guidance; it’s unclear whether or not the Service will do so.  Last week the Center sued the Forest Service for using that guidance at the Jacob Ryan timber sale, which would log old growth trees near Grand Canyon’s north rim.

Pioneer Forest Products, a Montana corporation, was one of four bidders on the contract. Another, Arizona Forest Restoration Products, had advanced a plan solely focused on using small-diameter trees, and signed an historic memo of understanding with conservation groups committing to a common goal of ecological restoration as a step to restoring healthy, fire-maintained forests and native biological diversity.

“Today’s decision, among many other signs, suggests that the Forest Service’s leadership, after all these years and despite mountains of restoration rhetoric to the contrary, remains hopelessly mired in an antiquated age of agricultural forestry.”