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
The question of standards in forest planning has emerged as a central issue in the proposed NFMA regulations. It seems that a common narrative by the press in covering the story thus far is the amount of discretion afforded in the proposed rule versus its lack of “musts and shalls.”
Here is the definition of standards in the proposed regulations: “A standard is a mandatory constraint on project and activity decisionmaking, established to help achieve or maintain the desired condition or conditions, to avoid or mitigate undesirable effects, or to meet applicable legal requirements.” (76 Fed. Reg. 8517).
I have made my pro-standards case in various places, hitting on the usual theme of accountability, while others like Professor Mark Squillace have thoughtfully criticized their use at the forest plan level. I hear similar complaints about standards from others participating in the draft regulations as well.
This is an important debate. But my sense is that we might not all be that clear about the variety of ways in which standards are used in planning. Maybe we all have different conceptions based on our interactions with forest planning in various parts of the country. So before making an argument for standards, allow me to first explain what I mean by the term.
Types of Standards Used in Forest Planning
Different types of standards are used in forest planning. They can differ in scale, specificity, and complexity. Some administrative regions of the USFS, for example, use standards cutting across multiple National Forests (this being very relevant to Melissa’s point about standards and scale–many of us agreeing that some standards might best be applied at larger spatial scales).
National Forest plans have also used forest-wide standards that vary in detail and complexity. Take, for example, the forest-wide range standard in the 1986 Lolo National Forest Plan:
Conflicts between livestock and big game will be resolved so big game are allocated the forage required to meet their needs. Domestic livestock will be allowed to utilize any forage surplus not conflicting with the planned expansion of big-game populations. Reductions in livestock numbers will be avoided if possible, but will be acceptable to meet management goals. (II.9).
To me, this seems more like a nudge than a clear unequivocal standard, but it still provides some direction.
Forest-wide standards can also be more complicated, such as the Lolo’s forest-wide “snag standard.” This standard requires sufficient snags and dead material to be provided in order to maintain 80 percent of the population of snag-using species. More detailed prescriptions are provided in this forest-wide standard, such as specifying the number of big snags needed per acre on different forest types on the Lolo. (I get the sense that critics of standards are thinking about this sort of example).
Standards are also used for particular management areas or zones as identified in a forest plan. These sorts of standards can be very straightforward and basically state what is allowed to happen in a particular area. They specify allowed uses, prohibitions, and constraints. The Lolo Plan, for example, divides the forest into 28 management areas, each with a different set of standards. Consider the following examples:
Standards used for a municipal watershed area state that “livestock grazing permits will not be issued” and that “chemical herbicides and pesticides will not be used within the Ashley Creek Watershed.”
A management area including significant historical, archeological, paleontological, and cultural sites uses a timber standard stating that “timber removal will be limited to that necessary to enhance historic values and provide for public safety” and that “timber removal will be under administrative use rather than commercial sale authority.”
A management area consisting of large roadless blocks of land contains standards that disallow most types of motorized access, the construction of developed recreation facilities, and commercial logging.
These are straightforward, meaningful standards playing an important role in forest planning. They are not hyper-complex nor do they require super-human analytical abilities to write and implement them. Nor is there any evidence, that I’m aware of at least, showing that the writing of such standards is what bogs down the forest planning process.
Why Standards?
The use of standards in a forest plan should be required under the NFMA regulations for several reasons. We have discussed a few of these already on the blog, often in the context of what is required by NFMA and the importance of accountability. I’d like to discuss a few issues that have not received as much attention but are very relevant to the proposed rule:
1. Standards help differentiate one management (planning/zone) area from another. The above example from the Lolo demonstrates the important relationship between standards and the designation of management areas/zones. The former gives meaning to the latter. Why would the Lolo National Forest designate a management area if that area had no different allowed uses or prohibitions than some other area? Or why would the proposed rule require the identification of priority watersheds for maintenance or restoration if those areas had no meaningful prohibitions? If the agency is going to draw lines on a map, then those lines should mean something.
2. Standards facilitate the effective use of adaptive management—one of the principles of the proposed rule. Standards help define the purpose and boundaries of adaptive management and planning. After all, adaptive management is a means to an end, and that end needs to be clearly articulated. Without standards, adaptive management is too susceptible to political exploitation and the dodging of tough political choices.
A commonalty found in most adaptive management literature is the need for a structured decision making process and the identification of clear and measurable management objectives. The Interior Department’s Technical Guide (as discussed at the Science Panel) emphasizes both as crucial to the success of adaptive management:
If the objectives are not clear and measurable, the adaptive framework is undermined…Objectives need to be measurable for two purposes: first, so progress toward their achievement can be assessed; second, so performance that deviates from objectives may trigger a change in management direction. Explicit articulation of measurable objectives helps to separate adaptive management from trial and error, because the exploration of management options over time is directed and justified by the use of objectives. U.S. Department of the Interior, Adaptive Management: The U.S. Department of the Interior Technical Guide (2009), at 11.
Standards can be used to help define these objectives while providing a relevant metric in determining their achievement. More basic is the fact that adaptive management projects will take place in particular management areas of a National Forest, as identified in a forest plan, and these zones/standards will guide the questions and purpose of any adaptive management project.
3. Standards can help the USFS, and other federal agencies, meet the goals and mandates of other environmental laws. There are important interconnections between NFMA and other laws like NEPA and the ESA and CWA. NFMA regulations should thus be considered as part of a larger regulatory framework. And these environmental laws and regulations should be viewed as goals, not constraints.
Consider, for example, the role standards play vis-à-vis the ESA. The proposed planning regulations properly emphasize the agency’s obligation to conserve endangered and threatened species. The proposed rule “would require the responsible official to explicitly recognize the recovery of T&E species as an important part of land management plans…” (76 Fed. Reg. 8494).
Standards can play an important role in this regard. Consider, for example, the unsuccessful delisting of grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone region. At issue in this case was the Grizzly Bear’s Conservation Strategy, which included the amending of multiple national forest plans. The Court found the Conservation Strategy short of being an “adequate regulatory mechanism,” as required by the ESA, partly because the forest plan amendments included few meaningful standards and too many discretionary and unenforceable guidelines. Cases like these demonstrate how meaningful standards can help the USFS meet all of its legal obligations, not just NFMA.(see Greater Yellowstone Coalition v. Servheen, 672 F. Supp. 2d. 1105, (D. Mont. 2009).
While researching back issues of High Country News for a future post, I ran across this article..from 1995.. the year the original Toy Story was the #1 movie and Microsoft introduced Windows ’95.
– From the September 04, 1995 issue by Erik Ryberg
While reform of the Endangered Species Act captures headlines across the West, some conservationists say an equally important law is also in danger.
It is the National Forest Management Act, or NFMA, which has governed watersheds, soils and wildlife for nearly two decades. Forest Service officials now propose wholesale changes in the regulations that implement the 1976 law.
“The Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act get all the press, but really it’s the NFMA that’s been holding our forests together,” says Jennifer Ferenstein of Missoula’s Alliance for the Wild Rockies.
Ferenstein says the law’s current regulations specifically direct the Forest Service to maintain viable populations of native species throughout their ranges and protect water quality and soil productivity. “No other public-land law is so sweeping and so straightforward,” she says.
But the Forest Service, in a 35-page explanation, contends that these rules are difficult to understand and contain too much “language without real substance.” It says new rules are needed to give the agency greater flexibility, to streamline forest plans, and to allow for “adaptive management” necessary to implement ecosystem analysis.
Environmentalists fear the new regulations go far beyond streamlining.
“All the clarity in the current regulations has been removed,” says Ferenstein. “Wherever the current regulations say the agency “shall protect streams and streambanks,” or “shall provide for fish and wildlife habitat,” the proposed regulations substitute a lot of vague language about professional judgment and the need for flexibility.”
Ferenstein says when her group makes an administrative appeal on a logging project, it is almost always based on the act. “We use (it) to ensure that riparian areas are protected, to ensure that soil compaction doesn’t occur, and to ensure that regeneration needs are met,” she says. “All of that is going down the drain with these new regulations.”
Jeff Juel of the Inland Empire Public Lands Council in Spokane, Wash., says the new regulations amount to “total industrial dominion” over publicly owned forests. His group recently filed a legal challenge to a timber sale on the Kootenai National Forest, alleging the sale will threaten population viability of eight native species. The new regulations would prevent such court challenges on behalf of any species not already listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Speaking for the Forest Service in Washington, D.C., planning specialist Ann Christensen says the current regulations require her agency to perform unrealistic analyses. “The meaning of a term like population viability has evolved over the years,” she says. “Depending on the interpreter it can be beyond the grasp of anyone to implement the current regulations.”
But Kieran Suckling of the Southwest Center for Biodiversity in Silver City, N.M., says rules like the minimum viability requirement are essential. “With the current rules, you can measure the effect of Forest Service projects and hold the agency accountable for them,” says Suckling. “You can go out and count woodpeckers; you can judge the accuracy of a forest plan by acquiring data.”
The proposed rules, he says, reflect an “ethereal world with no measures and no accountability.”
Because grassroots groups across the West have used this law to shut down countless logging and grazing plans, adds Suckling, “It’s no surprise the Forest Service wants to get rid of it.”
A copy of the proposed regulations, which are scheduled to become final in early 1996, can be obtained at any forest supervisor’s office or by requesting them from the Forest Service at P.O. Box 96090, Washington, D.C. 20090.
But it’s precisely that flexibility that worries Peter Nelson, federal lands director at Defenders of Wildlife. “Flexibility absent consistent guidance can lead to a variety of outcomes for water and wildlife,” he says, “not all of them good.” For instance, “the proposal directs forest managers to provide for the viability of species” — to make sure, in other words, that no species is at risk of extinction. “But it also says that if you’re not able to, you don’t have to. And it’s not clear to me how forest managers are required to prove that they can’t.”
The proposed rule requires forest supervisors to develop plans that “maintain or restore the structure, function, composition, and connectivity of a healthy and resilient ecosystem,” writes Tony Tooke, the agency’s director of ecosystem management coordination, in an e-mail. Yet there’s little in the rule to define those terms.
“How will you or I know that we’ve walked into a resilient ecosystem?” Nelson says. “There’s no clear criteria set out in the draft to determine that.” Nor does it require proof in numbers that such an ecosystem is, as the proposal assumes, beneficial to a variety of wildlife. “I’m afraid the Forest Service thinks monitoring at the species level is burdensome,” Nelson says. “I think of it as a trust-building exercise.” With ecosystem protection as with nuclear arms control, it’s “trust, but verify.”
In short, the new rule leaves a lot up to the discretion of local forest managers. That’s not necessarily bad: Forest supervisors can observe changes at the local level that would elude bureaucrats in D.C. “It’s hard at the regulation level to provide any one-size-fits-all standard,” says Martin Nie, associate professor of natural resource policy at the University of Montana. “I can think of some forest supervisors who’ll go to town with this thing in terms of meaningful standards and requirements.”
Local supervisors under pressure from politics or industry, however, could theoretically veer in a less constructive direction. “The pushback is always economics,” says Congressman Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., who has criticized the proposal for weakening wildlife protection. “But when you have habitat shrinking, species disappearing and wild places not being protected, your decision-making can’t be subjected to biased outside pressure. You have to have strong federal oversight to make sure what you do is based on facts and science.”
Timber and other industry interests have not yet commented on the rule, except to say they’re watching it closely. Meanwhile, the Forest Service will take public comments through May 16.
Francis thinks everyone should consider contributing. For Westerners, “the planning rule affects everything from where you hike to the quality of your drinking water.” After all, it’s your plane the agency is piloting, he says, “and you need to have some way of knowing whether it’s staying on course.”
The funny thing about this to me is that I think I agree with Peter, for opposite reasons. He sees the FS requiring conceptual ideas like resilience as questionable, because he doesn’t know that the concept means what he wants (protecting species). I don’t like requiring concepts in regulations because judges will ultimately decide anything fuzzy based, more than likely, on their own views.
In any conflictual writing exercise (say legislation, writing plans), fuzzy and vague seems good at first because everyone seems to get what they want. It’s when the poor implementers take it forward (and get litigated) we realize that we just postponed, and changed the arena of, the conflict.
Here’s a quote from Martin in the same article:
In short, the new rule leaves a lot up to the discretion of local forest managers. That’s not necessarily bad: Forest supervisors can observe changes at the local level that would elude bureaucrats in D.C. “It’s hard at the regulation level to provide any one-size-fits-all standard,” says Martin Nie, associate professor of natural resource policy at the University of Montana. “I can think of some forest supervisors who’ll go to town with this thing in terms of meaningful standards and requirements.”
But it’s not the supes we really have to worry about.. at least according to Congressman Grijalva..
Local supervisors under pressure from politics or industry, however, could theoretically veer in a less constructive direction. “The pushback is always economics,” says Congressman Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., who has criticized the proposal for weakening wildlife protection. “But when you have habitat shrinking, species disappearing and wild places not being protected, your decision-making can’t be subjected to biased outside pressure. You have to have strong federal oversight to make sure what you do is based on facts and science.”
Unlike his Dad, he is a big fan of discretion and dislikes one-size fits-all standards. Five years on, he's now reading Appendix N.
One of my hopes for the new planning rule was that it would require the writing of meaningful forest plans. Here is what I wrote as part of last year’s science panel (Nie NFS planning rule science panel statement):
There is little value in writing expensive, time-consuming plans if such plans make no decisions and have no vision.
Legally-binding and enforceable standards and guidelines should be included in the new planning rule. NFMA was designed to reign in agency discretion by providing clearer standards and enforceable checks on the USFS. Meeting such standards has proven difficult for the agency at times. But the solution is not the removal of such standards, but rather to figure out ways to more effectively and efficiently meet them.
While inherently difficult, especially at the front-end, setting standards will facilitate adaptive management and collaborative decision making over the long run. Regarding the former, standards help define the purpose and boundaries of the process. After all, adaptive management is a means to an end, and that end needs to be clearly articulated. Without standards, adaptive management is too susceptible to political exploitation and the dodging of tough political choices. As for collaboration, standards provide the necessary direction, legal sideboards, and additional certainty to those engaged in the process.
This recommendation was precipitated by the vacuous nature of the 2005/2008 planning regulations that were essentially non-decision making documents.
So on this score, what should we make of the proposed regulations? I think they are a more serious effort by the USFS to appropriately balance the need for planning adaptability with political accountability.
The regulations are heavy on things the agency must consider when writing and amending forest plans. So I don’t think the rule will streamline or expedite the planning process. But the draft regulations require (with some wiggle room provided) plans to include some important things, like standards (AMEN! with explanation here and here), guidelines, the suitability of areas, and to situate the national forests within their larger context and landscape, among others. Under this rule, forest plans would actually mean something and include some important decisions.
The “Musts and Shalls:” Here are some things the draft regulations require (not exhaustive nor includes preexisting MUSYA/NFMA requirements):
*The responsible official shall engage the public—including Tribes and Alaska Native Corporations, other Federal agencies.
*One or more assessments must be conducted for the development of a new plan or for a plan revision
*The responsible official shall develop a unit monitoring program for the plan area,
*The regional forester shall develop a broader-scale monitoring strategy for unit monitoring questions that can best be answered at a geographic scale broader than one unit.
*Each regional forester shall ensure that the broader-scale monitoring strategy is within the financial and technical capabilities of the region and complements other ongoing monitoring efforts.
*The responsible official shall conduct a biennial evaluation of new information gathered through the unit monitoring program and relevant information from the broader-scale strategy, and shall issue a written report of the evaluation and make it available to the public
*While all plans must contain the required five plan components (desired conditions, objectives, standards, guidelines, suitability of areas, and may contain goals), not every issue or resource plan would require all five plan components.
*All plan amendments must comply with Forest Service NEPA procedures. The proposed rule provides that appropriate NEPA documentation for an amendment could be an EIS, an environmental assessment (EA), or a categorical exclusion (CE) depending upon the scope and scale of the amendment and its likely effects. (more on this later)
*This section would provide that projects and activities authorized after approval of a plan, plan revision, or plan amendment developed pursuant to this rule must be consistent with plan components as set forth in this section.
*The proposed rule would allow for this to occur, and in § 219.7, would require identification of priority watersheds for restoration
*The proposed rule would require the responsible official to document how the best available scientific information was taken into account in the assessment report, the plan decision document, and the monitoring evaluation reports.
*Finally, plan components would be required to protect, maintain, and restore clean, abundant water supplies (both surface and groundwater sources), and soils, and productivity recognizing their importance as fundamental ecosystem resources and services. (& as stated elsewhere “The proposed rule would require that plans include plan components to maintain, protect, and restore public water supplies, groundwater, sole source aquifers, and source water protection areas where they occur on NFS lands.”)
*The proposed rule would highlight the importance of maintaining, protecting, or restoring riparian areas and the values such areas provide by requiring that plans include plan components to guide management with riparian areas. The proposed rule also requires that plans establish a default width within which those plan components apply.
Not included on my list is the diversity provision, as that deserves a separate post.
GUEST VIEWPOINT: Obama threatens to shatter political peace in the forest
By Andy Stahl
Published: Wednesday, Mar 2, 2011 05:00AM, The Register-Guard
A generation ago, in the twilight of his career and his life, U.S. Sen. Hubert Humphrey shepherded into law a new manifesto for our national forests. With passage of the 1976 National Forest Management Act, former vice-president Humphrey predicted that “The days have ended when the forest may be viewed only as trees and trees viewed only as timber. The soil and the water, the grasses and the shrubs, the fish and the wildlife, and the beauty of the forest must become integral parts of the resource manager’s thinking and actions.” With Humphrey’s untimely death in 1978, he never got the chance to see his vision realized.
Humphrey’s 1976 law sought to make the U.S. Forest Service more responsive to public concerns about logging, especially clear-cutting. The law requires the Forest Service to explain and justify the ecological effects of its timbering practices. Long dominated by professional foresters trained to see forests as lumber, the new law led the Forest Service to retain wildlife, soil, fisheries and water experts to enlarge its perspective of trees and their values. In 1982, as required by NFMA, the Forest Service adopted forest planning rules that regulate logging to protect wildlife, water quality and soil productivity.
The years following were not smooth sailing. The Forest Service’s first attempts at justifying national forest logging levels and practices fell flat. The new forest plans proposed even more clear-cutting than before. National forest logging levels increased steadily from 10 billion board feet in 1976 to more than 12 billion by 1987. The Forest Service simply had not gotten Humphrey’s message.
But judges did. By the early 1990s, federal judges were being called upon to compel the Forest Service to obey the law, especially the wildlife protection provisions of NFMA and its 1982 forest planning rules. In the most famous such case, Seattle federal district court Judge William Dwyer noted “a remarkable series of violations of environmental laws” regarding Forest Service clear-cut logging of old-growth forests in Oregon and Washington in which the threatened northern spotted owl lived.
By 2000, logging levels had plummeted and, since then, they have stabilized at a sustainable 2 billion to 3 billion board feet. With most of the highly profitable old-growth forests long gone, the Forest Service now focuses its logging on reducing flammable brush and thinning small trees.
Apparently not content to let today’s political peace in the woods persist, the Obama administration has proposed to replace the 1982 forest planning rules. The new rules are long on flowery rhetoric, but short on forest protection substance. They replace simple principles such as protecting wildlife species with complex, difficult-to-define ecological pablum. The new rules appear designed to placate environmental interests with happy-talk, on the one hand, while, on the other, weakening the forest protection standards that Humphrey sought. If nothing else, the new proposal threatens to stir the hornet’s nest of national forest policy.
Why now? Why, 20 years after Judge Dwyer knocked some sense into the Forest Service’s head, does the Obama administration want to risk bringing controversy and acrimony back to our national forests? The proposed new rules do nothing to help thin overstocked stands or lessen wildfire risks. The Forest Service has been doing that job for more than a decade. Higher logging levels on our national forests might increase economic activity (if the demand for wood products also picks up), and a White House that puts job creation first might be tempted to let forest protection slide.
President Obama should leave well enough alone and let the 1982 forest protection rules stand. Sustainable jobs are not found by returning to the days of national forest overcutting.
Andy Stahl, a forester, is executive director of Eugene-based Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics.
Tongass NF, SE Alaska. The draft regs require that "the physical and biological integration of the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems within a landscape" be taken into account.
Instead of taking on the proposed forest planning regulations in one fell swoop, I’d like to use our blog to analyze it in sections, with a lot of debate and discussion along the way. There are things in the proposed regulations that I really like. And I’m planning on writing about those soon. But I’d like to start with some connected questions that our readers might be able to help answer.
1. Do the regulations give too much discretion to National Forest Supervisors? The USFS, like most bureaucracies, will go down swinging in order to protect their administrative discretion. It’s part of the agency’s (and Sharon’s) DNA. And there is a considerable amount of discretion provided in the proposed regulations, though nothing close to 2005 or 2008 versions. It will be up to the discretion of each National Forest to determine what the specifics look like in every place (and how standards, guidelines, suitability, monitoring, and other plan components are used). Discretion cuts both ways and the regulations could be used to draft very different forest plans in the future. This is not necessarily a big change from the past.
2. Do the regulations ask planners to do too many things? Does the 2011 rule ask more things of the agency than does the 1982 or 2000 versions? I read Andy Stahl’s insightful comments before I finished reading the regulations, so I was influenced by his argument that the proposed regs are a form of “ecological rationality.”
So I made a note of how many times the regulations ask planners to “consider” or “take into account” X, Y, Z. This is pretty standard in environmental law and planning, but I’m curious if these regulations take it up a notch?
Instead of mandating that the agency shall do this or that, the regulations require all sorts of important things to be considered or taken into account. I can’t complain because I asked the agency as part of its Science Panel to consider various things when planning, so I’m guilty too (like most groups whom asked the agency to consider something better in the future).
Before skimming the list below, consider a few questions: Are these required considerations a good thing? Will they impact agency decision making? Is the agency capable of doing all this? How do these required considerations simplify planning? Are the considerations nothing new, maybe already required or done as part of NEPA analysis?
Here are some examples, with Fed. Reg. page numbers provided:
The planning process would take into account other forms of knowledge, such as local information, national perspectives, and native knowledge. 8481.
In doing so, responsible officials would take into account the various stressors or impacts that could affect the presence of ecological resources and their functions on the unit.
This section of the proposed rule addresses the role of science in planning and would require that the responsible official take into account the best available scientific information. 8485.
Additionally, the proposed rule would require the responsible official to use collaborative processes when possible, to take into account the various roles and responsibilities of participants and the responsibilities of the Forest Service itself, and to create a process that is open and accessible. 8486.
In designing plan components to maintain or restore ecosystems and watersheds, the proposed rule would require the responsible official to take into account the physical (including air quality) and biological integration of the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems within a landscape. 8490
Agency proposes that the planning rule require responsible officials to take into account cultural conditions when developing plan components for social and economic sustainability. 8492.
In developing these plan components, the responsible official would be required to take into account through the collaborative planning process and the results of the assessment the social, cultural, and economic conditions relevant to the area influenced by the plan; the distinctive roles and contributions of the unit within the broader landscape; sustainable recreational opportunities and uses; multiple uses, including ecosystem services, that contribute to local, regional, and national economies in a sustainable manner; and cultural and historic resources and uses.
Instead of adding a new aspect to sustainability, the Agency proposes that the planning rule require responsible officials to take into account cultural conditions when developing plan components for social and economic sustainability. 8492
The proposed rule would require responsible officials to consider opportunities to coordinate with neighboring landowners to link open spaces and take into account joint management objectives where feasible and appropriate. 8495
The responsible official would also be required to consider the landscape-scale context for management as identified in the assessment and the land ownership and access patterns relative to the plan area. These requirements reflect the ‘‘all lands’’ approach the Agency is taking to resource management. 8495
Paragraphs (a)(8) and (a)(9) would require that the responsible official take into account reasonably foreseeable risks to ecological, social, and economic sustainability and the potential impacts of climate and other system drivers, stressors, and disturbance regimes, such as wildland fire, invasive species, and human-induced stressors, on the unit’s resources. 8495
Plan components must also take into account cultural and historic resources and uses. 8513.
Section 219.4(a) requires that when developing opportunities for public participation, the responsible official shall take into account the discrete and diverse roles, jurisdictions, responsibilities, and skills of interested and affected parties as well as the accessibility of the process, opportunities, and information. 8513
When developing opportunities for public participation, the responsible official shall take into account the discrete and diverse roles, jurisdictions, responsibilities, and skills of interested and affected parties; the accessibility of the process, opportunities, and information; and the cost, time, and available staffing. 8515.
(a) Integrated resource management. When developing plan components forintegrated resource management, to the extent relevant to the plan area and the public participation process and the requirements of §§ 219.7, 219.8, 219.9, and 219.11, the responsible official shall consider:
(1) Aesthetic values, air quality, cultural and heritage resources, ecosystem services, fish and wildlife species, forage, geologic features, grazing and rangelands, habitat and habitat connectivity, recreational values and settings, riparian areas, scenery, soil, surface and subsurface water quality, timber, trails, vegetation, viewsheds, wilderness, and other relevant resources; (2) Renewable and nonrenewable energy and mineral resources; (3) Sustainable management of infrastructure, such as recreational facilities and transportation and utility corridors; (4) Opportunities to coordinate with neighboring landowners to link open spaces and take into account joint management objectives where feasible and appropriate; (5) Habitat conditions, subject to the requirements of § 219.9, for wildlife, fish, and plants commonly enjoyed and used by the public, such as species that are hunted, fished, trapped, gathered, observed, or needed for subsistence; (6) The landscape-scale context for management as identified in the assessment; (7) Land ownership and access patterns relative to the plan area; (8) Reasonably foreseeable risks to ecological, social, and economic sustainability; and (9) Potential impacts of climate and other system drivers, stressors and disturbance regimes, such as wildland fire, invasive species, and human induced stressors, on the unit’s resources (§ 219.8).
(5) To the extent practicable, appropriate, and relevant to the monitoring questions in the program, unit monitoring programs and broaderscale strategies must be designed to take into account: (i) Existing national and regional inventory, monitoring, and research programs of the Agency, including from the NFS, State and Private Forestry, and Research and Development, and of other governmental and non-governmental parties; (ii) Opportunities to design and carry out multi-party monitoring with other Forest Service units, Federal, State or local government agencies, scientists, partners, and members of the public; and (iii) Opportunities to design and carry out monitoring with federally recognized Indian Tribes and Alaska Native Corporations. 8521.
Jumbo Peak, Gifford Pinchot National Forest, photo by Tom Kogut
“What we leave on the land is more important than what we take away.” – Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth, 2002
“Narrowly defined desired future ecosystem conditions, particularly if they are historical conditions poorly aligned with the unprecedented future, will seldom provide useful targets for management intervention.” – Stephenson, Millar, and Cole In Beyond Naturalness, 2010
What’s the true value of a Forest Plan? Over the history of Forest Service planning, the answer has changed. Now it’s changing again – plans in the future will not be measured by the accuracy of their detailed descriptions of fixed “desired conditions”, but how robust and flexible the plans will be when dealing with uncertainty.
Of course, maybe the true value of planning was never what we thought. It may have simply been about drawing a map of the areas where activities could occur, and creating a certain level of accountability with the public about how the activities would be conducted. But the idea persists today that the central purpose of plans is to describe detailed “pictures” of our desired conditions, and the specific structure, composition and function of the necessary ecosystem elements.
What a history we’ve had! NFMA plans were originally conceived as essentially one big timber sale. During the Senate floor debate in 1976, Hubert Humphrey said that no project level NEPA documents would be required after a plan was completed. All the parts of the plan were equally important. That changed in 1990, when former Chief Dale Robertson began to assert that standards and guidelines were more important than objectives. Throughout the 1990s, we shifted our focus from the uses of the forest to the condition of the forest itself. While changing the NFMA planning rule, the 1999 Committee of Scientists described the purpose of forest planning as “outward looking, built upon assessments; grounded in current scientific understanding; collaborative in nature; and focused on desired future conditions.” Planners were told to concentrate on “what we leave on the land.”
Meanwhile, planning was requiring huge investments of time, and plans were being written with a few pages of goals and objectives followed by 100 or more pages of forest-wide or management-area-specific standards and guidelines. Good standards were difficult to write, because they required inventories of current conditions that weren’t available, understanding of changing technology, and the need for difficult projections about the level and intensity of likely future activities in the face of changing management priorities and changing conditions on-the-ground. It was difficult to set standards for things like old growth or riparian areas when we didn’t even know how many acres were out there.
So the 2005 and 2008 planning rules were written to make plans more strategic and vision oriented, like county comprehensive master plans, and less dependent upon prescriptive standards. The preamble to the 2008 planning rule explained that “plans are more effective if they include more detailed descriptions of desired conditions, rather than long lists of prohibitive standards or guidelines developed in an attempt to anticipate and address every possible future project or activity and the potential effects such projects could cause.”
But a funny thing happened when we started writing plans under the 2008 rule. Instead of 100 pages of standards and guidelines, we now had 100 pages of desired conditions. Rather than broad, strategic goals, descriptions of desired conditions were becoming specific, detailed, highly-parameterized descriptions of vegetation conditions: percent species composition, numbers of trees per acre, desired ranges of basal area, numbers of snags, etc. The idea was that detailed desired conditions could ease the burden on project planners in developing the “purpose and need” for projects. At the same time, these desired conditions writeups were suggested as a tool for “accountability”.
Meanwhile, we probably lost the idea that forest plans should be readily understood by the lay reader who treasures a forest. For many people, a forest is a place. It’s not a list of attributes.
But here’s the fundamental question about planning: Do National Forests change because of Forest Plans or in spite of Forest Plans? Can we really control nature? Is intensive end-oriented management possible everywhere? In the Rocky Mountain west, we work in fire-dominated ecosystems with very long fire-return intervals. We have seen huge swaths of trees dying of insects or disease. The rates of change are enormous, and for some forests, current FIA data doesn’t represent the current conditions on the ground. We are heavily influenced by severe storm events – intense snowstorms, rain on snow events, patterns of drought, summer floods, even tornadoes. There is no equilibrium condition. Our Forest Plan modeling shows dynamic, ever-changing forests. We have become focused on the types and rates of forest disturbances. At the scales we’re dealing with, it may not be possible to map a single desired condition, or even a reasonably understood “range of conditions”.
The dynamics of climate change create uncertainties at the scales we are working at. Connie Millar has said that “although DC statements may be written broadly (“habitat for species x exists in adequate amounts to maintain current populations”), equally often they emphasize limited views of the future, or very narrow ranges of conditions (“4-6 snags per acre”). This suggests that the possibility of multiple ecosystem pathways, unexpected events, major interactions among elements, and threshold events are not really accepted by managers or the public. DC statements that recognize ranges of outcomes and not just singular states as acceptable are more realistic.”
Florida State Law professor Robin Kundis Craig has argued for new types of plans and regulations because “Stationarity is Dead“: “we are moving into an era where ecological change might not be predictable and when external factors, positive feedbacks, or nonlinear instabilities in a system will cause changes to propagate in a domino-like fashion that is potentially irreversible. As land, air, and water temperatures generally increase, patterns of precipitation alter in terms of both amount and timing, and species shift as best they can to cope, “restoration” and even “sustainability” have the potential to become close to meaningless concepts. We are moving along an at least somewhat unpredictable path to an as yet unpredictable final destination.”
The planning problem is not just about natural forces – it’s also about societal changes. We are seeing new uses of National Forests, and more and more projects are proposed by somebody other than the Forest Service. For instance, how can we anticipate in advance what standards and guidelines apply to laying a new type of fiber-optic cable across a forest?
As explained in the business and public administration literature, the purpose of a strategic plan is to identify core strengths, intended roles and contributions, and a “vision” which can be a rallying point or goal to be achieved. A plan should be robust and flexible, so it can adapt to changing conditions, changing knowledge, and changing politics, while being consistent with the organization’s core strengths and vision. A highly detailed plan will detract from the day to day sensing necessary to manage the unexpected. As Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe state in their book Managing the Unexpected:
“A heavy investment in plans restricts sensing to expectations built into the plans and restricts responding to actions built into the existing repertoire. The result is a system that is less able to sense discrepancies, less able to update understanding and learn, and less able to recombine actions into new ways to handle the unexpected.”
Park Service scientists Robert Bennetts and Bruce Bingham have pointed out the reasons that it is highly difficult, if not impossible, for managers to achieve desired conditions, because of lack of information, lack of management control, unavoidable circumstances, and trade-offs based on societal values. They talk about the “punitive paradox”: managers aren’t going to report impaired conditions if they are being judged on the difference between existing and desired conditions. They conclude that desired conditions could be a useful scientific research question, but they don’t work as a management tool.
So where does this leave us? Actually, some of the answers have already been mentioned on this blog. There are some exciting planning techniques being implemented in the field. We’ve got the tools – let’s see what we can do.
This story is from the NY Times/Greenwire. It’s well thought out and touches on some topics that other news stories did not.
Here are a couple of quotes:
Forest Service officials say they want the rule to provide flexibility to account for varying local conditions. What is best for a forest in Alaska, for example, is likely to be different from what is needed in a Florida forest. They also want to make sure the new rule is simple enough that it can be easily implemented. One of the complaints from forest managers about the 1982 rule is that it was too complex, and the planning process takes too long as a result.
But Francis says simplicity should not come at the expense of effectiveness.
“It could be complicated, because we’re heading into somewhat unchartered waters, and we don’t know how climate change is going to affect things,” he said. “So you need the transparency and the accountability that we’re going to move in those directions [put forth in the rule]. That’s what the forest needs. Just because it’s hard and will require some tough decisions doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.”
and this..
Karen Hardigg, forest program manager for the Wilderness Society in Alaska, said if Tongass managers incorporate the new planning rule’s objectives into the forest’s management plan, it could help accelerate a shift away from old-growth logging to a more restoration-based economy.
“The emphasis on restoration and resiliency, on climate change, on collaboration — getting to shared priority-setting and preventing conflict — that could all be especially beneficial in southeast Alaska,” she said.
But like Francis, Hardigg believes the new rule leaves too much up to local forest managers. “We would have liked to have seen more solid direction. A little more teeth,” she said.
and
Its protections for wildlife are pretty weak,” said Jane Danowitz, public lands director for the Pew Environment Group. “There are some good aspects to the rule, but when it comes to a couple of key protections [for] wildlife and watersheds, they’re not strong and they tend to be left up to the discretion” of local forest managers, she added.
Michael Francis, national forest program director for the Wilderness Society says the new rule has a lot of good provisions, although he finds it long on vision but short on direction.
I wish the author of the piece has pressed those quoted to be more specific about what they wanted that they didn’t get. Those of us who are outside those “inside the Beltway” discussions would like to know. Is it as simple as “viability should be for all vertebrate species, and we don’t think the requirement for “maintaining or restoring ecosystem composition, structure and function” covers it because ____________”(fill in the blanks)?. Or do they actually want national standards of some kind?
Just as I was considering this, I found this story from the Courthouse News Service that indeed had more specifics.
“The administration appears to be looking to do the bare minimum for wildlife,” Defenders of Wildlife president Rodger Schlickeisen said in a statement.
The group, which was party to the lawsuits resulting in the California rulings, wanted the species viability standard reinstated and clear requirements for species monitoring.
Instead, the new rule eliminates use of management indicator species, and failed to include the species viability standard.
Earthjustice criticized the rule for lacking specific guidelines to protect streams and watersheds.
Environmentalists across the board say the rule gives agency managers too much leeway.
Marc Fink, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity – also a party in both California lawsuits – said the new plan eschews the viability requirement for a longer process in which forest supervisors determine species of concern.
Fink added that a new pre-decision objection process reduces public involvement and is step in the wrong direction.
“We’re concerned it would leave too much discretion to the forest service,” Fink said in an interview.
Fink thinks the Obama administration simply did not make the forest plan a priority, and instead of clamping down to assure specific protections, gave way for the agency to seek greater autonomy.
The Forest Service said the new plan’s flexible processes should reduce litigation. “We want to spend less time in the courts and more time in the forests,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said at a press conference.
The Associated Press reported that lawsuits to protect habitat for threatened and endangered species in past decades have slashed logging in National Forests by three-quarters from its peak.
But it’s false to assert that environmental litigation against logging projects is tying up taxpayer resources, Fink said.
“The data just doesn’t back them up,” Fink said, adding that only a small percentage of projects are litigated.
A Government Accountability Office report in 2010 found that only 2 percent of Forest Service fuel-reduction decisions end up in court. They are called “fuel-reduction” projects because their ostensible purpose is to reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfire.
But many environmentalists view that as a cover. They point out that if fuel reduction were truly the purpose, the projects would focus on brush and small trees, and not on mature trees that are valuable as timber.
Problems with the projects justified the challenges, Fink said, adding that legal victories have proven that the Forest Service historically abused its discretion.
“We need these meaningful sideboards and constraints so the public can act as watchdogs,” Fink said.
Although the Forest Service’s plan also emphasizes multiple uses, including recreation and resource use, preservation is intended to be its core.
“The heart of this planning rule is the requirement that we maintain and restore our forests,” USDA Undersecretary Harris Sherman said at the press conference.
There are plenty of good intentions in the regulations, Fink said, including a mention of climate change for the first time.
“But when you chip away the nice-sounding language, get to the shalls and shall nots, there’s not much left,” Fink said.
The public comment period for the plan ends in May; a final rule is expected around the end of the year.
If the Forest Service does not improve its draft rule, a legal challenge is “highly likely,” Fink said.
I guess as I go to my next litigation phone call, I’ll have to remember that my and my colleagues’ time (plus OGC, plus DOJ, plus the folks on the forest preparing the record) must not be defined as “taxpayer resources” because the GAO found that lawsuits are only filed on a small percentage of all projects.
Also, who knew that objections “reduced public involvement.” It seems like they increase public involvement because you end up talking to the objectors as well as others. What kind of “public involvement” is sending an appeal to DC for review, compared to sitting with the decisionmaker, their boss, and members of the public who are interested, to describe your concerns?
Also, the way to win friends and influence people is generally not considered to be threatening lawsuits if you don’t get your way. Just sayin’
I have spent the weekend dealing with leadership issues in one of my volunteer organizations…so have been slow to respond to blog comments. I’m sure I’ll have something thoughtful to say about this experience, when it’s over, if it ever is…
Anyway, here’s a question from Bob Berwyn, editor of Summit County Citizen’s Voice and photographer par excellence. The photo above is his work.
IMHO we ought to be able to explain to a member of the public who is not a planning wonk “what’s goin’ on”.
Here’s the classic Marvin Gaye version of “What’s Goin’ On” for those of you for whom this reference seems unfamiliar.
Almost at the same time that I read the Forest Service press releases about the new draft forest planning rule, and even before I had a chance to click on all the links, I also had a couple of press releases from conservation and wildlife advocacy groups in my inbox, decrying the new rule as less protective of wildlife.
Sometimes, in my haste to “scoop” the local print newspaper, I rush into posting stories, using such press releases, combined with some of my own contextual understanding of the issue, to try and create something interesting for readers. I was tempted to do the same late last week, but decided against it. Instead, I posted a straightforward story about the release, along with the YouTube video (here it is,SF) , and the links straight off the Forest Service planning rule page, along with letting readers know that this is the start of another important public comment period and that there will be a meeting in Lakewood.
I figure there will be plenty of time to follow up and take a closer look at some of the particulars of the plan.
I did have a long conversation/interview with Andy Stahl, someone I’ve learned to trust over the years, knowing that he speaks from the watchdog perspective. I asked him what was different in this rule, and he zoomed in on the same issue – wildlife viability.
What I gathered from the combination of the press releases and the interview is that the new rule requires the Forest Service to carefully consider impacts to species listed as threatened or endangered, and to species of concern, but that it leaves a lot of loopholes (my word, not his) with regard to other species, or “common” species, as was posted here.
According to Andy, the 1982 version had a simple requirement to maintain the viability of all species. The new rule instead, sets a very high threshold … and relieves the Forest Service of any affirmative need to show that protection.
Andy brought the spotted owl into play and said that, ever since the spotted owl decision, the Forest Service has been trying to chip away at the viability provision.
So Friday, I tried to call the national Forest Service HQ to get some perspective from a Forest Service biologist. Couldn’t reach anyone in time, so Sharon suggested posing the question here on NCFP.
What I want is a FS biologist to explain how this new rule would be applied on the ground to protect viability of all species. I’m assuming it’s in the monitoring and assessment process, but what do I know?
I know there’s a lot more to the rule than this, but that’s what the conservation groups and wildlife advocates seem to be focusing on — Why is that?
Second question: How exactly does this rule give local forest officials more control? Can someone explain how the old rule was more centralized in Washington, D.C., as written in the Washington Post story?
Any feedback to help me explain all this my readers would be appreciated!
