Role of science

Normative Science Essay by Bob Lackey in Terra

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Robert T. Lackey retired in 2008 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Corvallis national research laboratory where he worked for 27 years as a senior scientist and deputy director. (Photo: Jeff Basinger)
Robert T. Lackey retired in 2008 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Corvallis national research laboratory where he worked for 27 years as a senior scientist and deputy director. (Photo: Jeff Basinger)
Here is the link.. Below is an excerpt

Let me illustrate with a current policy issue: “Should certain dams be removed to restore salmon runs?” Scientists can assess with some degree of confidence the likely effects of removing or maintaining a particular dam. Scientific information alone, however, is an insufficient justification for deciding to keep or remove a dam. There are biological consequences of dam removal (and maintenance), and those consequences may be substantial from a salmon perspective, but ecological consequences are but one of many elements that the public and decision-makers must weigh when making a policy choice.

Policymakers, not scientists, decide whether preserving salmon runs should trump flood protection, irrigated agriculture or electricity generation. As the public and decision-makers balance policy alternatives, what they need from scientists are facts and probabilities. What they do not need from scientists are their or their employer’s values and policy preferences masked within scientific information disguised as being policy neutral.

There are other common examples. In working with scientists, I often encounter value-laden terms like “degradation,” “improvement,” “good,” “poor,” “impact,” or “alien invasive.” Scientists should avoid these types of normative words in conveying scientific information. Such words imply a preferred ecological state, a desired condition, an accepted benchmark or a favored class of policy options. This is not science; it is a form of policy advocacy — subtle, sometimes unintentional, but it is patently stealth policy advocacy.

Consider the widespread use of concepts such as “ecosystem health.” It is normative science! “Ecosystem health” is a value-driven policy construct, but it is often passed off as science to unsuspecting policy-makers and the public. Think what the average person actually hears when scientific data or assessments are packaged or presented under the rubric of “ecosystem health.” Healthy is good. Any other state of the ecosystem must be unhealthy, hence, undesirable.

Scientific information must remain a cornerstone of public policy decisions, but I offer cautionary guidance to scientists: Get involved in policy deliberations, but play the appropriate role. Provide facts, probabilities and analysis, but avoid normative science. Scientists have much to offer the public and decision-makers but also have much to lose when they practice stealth policy advocacy.

I read all the comments carefully and found many worth quoting also, so here goes..

This from Bill West:

Lawyers refer to “combat science” and “dueling experts.” The most obvious context is litigation, but I also routinely see scientists employed or funded by public research or resource management institutions who are clearly working to advance an agenda. Sometimes it’s their institution’s or sponsor’s agenda, but all too often it’s a personal or ideological one that may even run counter to the institution’s publicly-stated policies and goals.

In my experience, including my time as a biologist working for governmental and university research organizations, “normative science” as the author describes it is the rule rather than the exception. I’m sorry, but having a point of view is an unavoidable attribute of human nature. I agree that scientists should strive for pure objectivity, but it’s unrealistic to expect them to achieve it. This is especially true when scientists’ work is intended to guide and support policy or resource management decisions, whether they’re getting their paycheck directly from an agency or from a university. When advising policy makers or the public I feel that it is better for such scientists to do their best to make the kinds of objective assessments that the author calls for, but then to explicitly point out where their assessments rely on assumptions or inferences rather than data, explain what those assumptions and inferences are and how they might influence the analysis and outcomes, and acknowledge their own predispositions and explain how their assumptions and inferences might align with their predispositions. After all, the scientist’s own point of view is an important piece of metadata that needs to be present in a comprehensive analysis.

Given our restoration discussions on this blog, I thought this was interesting by Jim Anderson…

Cheers to Bob Lackey for illuminating the fallacy of normative science. It permeates the vocabulary of science and goes to the very core beliefs of ecology and conservation biology. For example, the idea of “ecosystem restoration of the San Francisco Bay Delta habitat” is a stealth normative concept. What is the target period,1948 when the rivers were filled with gold mining sediment, or a time earlier when the delta was a series of lakes? Lauren Sommer in a recent NPR article asks this question http://www.npr.org/2012/10/07/162393931/restore-california-delta-to-what-exactly .

In a recent National Research Council committee http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13394 we debated the idea of restoration. Ecosystems cannot be restored. They are in constant evolution and the best that can be done is to anticipate the possible directions and steer the systems to one determined to be more favorable to society. In the very near future, the focus in many instances will not be on restoration but on adaptive triage. In fact, I suspect for the shores of New Jersey and Long Island that future is now.

This one by Paul Fishman

I’ve had a county commission tell me that, although my presentation was informative, well put together, and based on excellent data, they had to go with the “opinion” of the state fish agency because “they are the experts.” A lot of my career has been involved with natural resource permitting. I have developed a bad habit of reading journal articles and research reports that are cited by agency staff in their findings on a proposed project. All too often I find that the reports have been cherry picked to find information that supports the writer’s conclusion (i.e. policy decision), or that the cited source says nothing about the topic for which it has been cited. Very often this kind of normative science has a price tag; a recent client spent an extra $1M on a project because of an agency policy decision that was anything but science-based.

I have no idea how to get to complete objectivity in the use of science. I do like the suggestion by one commenter that we at least strive for transparency. For the examples I used above, at least an objective peer review of agency staff findings would go a long way.

From Ed Hanna:

Many of the norms for publishing scientific research already serve well to ensure self-regulation. As well, much can be learned from the rules imposed elsewhere; for example, rules for declaring a conflict of interest. Likewise rules for full disclosure. The problem is that these rules do not fully resolve the stealth component; largely due to the subtle and nuanced nature of stealth advocacy.
In my professional practice, I run up against this problem daily. I have developed a set of rules and procedures that I use to guide my work.
1. Use quantitative methods with full disclosure of all data, sources and uncertainties (error ranges)
2. Analyse a full range of alternatives for achieving a clearly stated desired outcome
3. Report results as medians and ranges using physical units of measure
4. Use economic methods to derive weights (i.e., preference values) for physical measures
5. Rank the alternatives based on their net contribution to the overall wellbeing of the community
6. Assess and report the distribution of costs, benefits and risks among major groups (stakeholders) within the community.

There are some critical aspects to this set of rules. First, I disagree with Lee Foote when he states that “… scientists should be encouraged to speak out and give their considered professional opinion.” At no point is this process would I step forward and give my ” considered professional opinion”. My considered professional opinion is reflected in the analytical framework and the data sources on which I have chosen to rely … no more needs to be said. I am agnostic in terms of the actual results and have no considered professional opinion to add. I may have a personal opinion on what I would like to see happen but it would be patently unprofessional to offer this in my professional role.

Step 4 is critical and is one about which many natural scientists are unfamiliar and even worse, highly suspicious. Environmental and natural resource management decisions are social policy decisions. The overriding goal is to improve the collective wellbeing of the members of society. What is and is not an improvement in our collective wellbeing is a challenging question but a whole field of science is devoted to defining, measuring and forecasting societal wellbeing (i.e., economics and sociology). Certainly natural science has little to add. Within our society, there are diverse values and preferences; measuring and aggregating these values is complicated and imprecise … as also can be argued when it comes to the natural sciences. Nonetheless, it is our responsibility as scientists trying to inform decision-makers to make the best use of the best knowledge and information available. If this rule is followed when it comes to gauging the public’s values and preferences and we abide by the rules of transparency and replicability, we have performed our duties with integrity, even if the collective public preference deviates significantly from our own personal values.

Let me conclude with mention of Step 6. There is no scientific basis reach a conclusion on the issue of fairness. I can apply rigourous scientific theory and methods to inform decision makers as to the alternative that will yield the great improvement in our collective wellbeing. But that is not the final word. The distribution of benefits, costs and risks among different sectors of society ultimately is the source of much public discourse. The basic question is “Is the distribution fair?” Are the trade-offs between economic and environmental interests fair? Have the interests of future generations been given fair consideration? These are classic normative issues on which the sciences, natural or social, have to little to offer. These are issues at the heart of philosophy and religion. These are issues that should be resolved in a free and responsible democracy through public discourse and the political process. When scientists offer their “considered professional opinions” on such matters they not only bring science into disrupt, they undermine the fundamentals on which our society is based.

Well, I’ve run out of room and there are still thoughtful, well-written comments that could be quoted. I recommend you check them out for yourself and if you would like to discuss here, feel free.

Study: County-Level Income Increase Explained by Protected Lands

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headwaters_mapHeadwaters Economics – a non-profit economic research group based in Bozeman, Montana that specializes in community and economic development – has created an interactive map to show the amount of per capita income explained by protected federal lands for each county in the non-metropolitan western U.S.

For example, in Gallatin County, Montana $2,655 of the per capita income (7% of total PCI) can be explained by the presence of protected public lands.  Or, in Gunnison County, Colorado, $5,203 of the per capita income (15% of total PCI) can be explained by the presence of protected public lands. Meanwhile, in Teton County, Wyoming $23,897 of the per capita income (24% of total PCI) can be explained by the presence of protected public lands.

The new interactive map and explanation take into account each county’s characteristics and shows an estimated amount of per capita income that can explained by protected federal lands for each non-metropolitan county.

This new county-specific analysis builds on earlier work (West Is Best) by Headwaters Economics that looked at the U.S. West’s 286 non-metro counties as a region, and found a meaningful relationship between the amount of protected public land and higher per capita income levels in 2010.  According to this analysis, the effect protected public lands have on per capita income can be most easily described in this way: on average, western non-metro counties have a per capita income that is $436 higher for every 10,000 acres of protected public lands within their boundaries.

Do Bark Beetle Outbreaks Increase Wildfire Risks in the Central U.S. Rocky Mountains? Implications from Recent Research

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From the Natural Areas Journal. Abstract snipped below:

Appropriate response to recent, widespread bark beetle (Dendroctonus spp.) outbreaks in the western United States has been the subject of much debate in scientific and policy circles. Among the proposed responses have been landscape-level mechanical treatments to prevent the further spread of outbreaks and to reduce the fire risk that is believed to be associated with insect-killed trees. We review the literature on the efficacy of silvicutural practices to control outbreaks and on fire risk following bark beetle outbreaks in several forest types. While research is ongoing and important questions remain unresolved, to date most available evidence indicates that bark beetle outbreaks do not substantially increase the risk of active crown fire in lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) and spruce (Picea engelmannii)-fir (Abies spp.) forests under most conditions. Instead, active crown fires in these forest types are primarily contingent on dry conditions rather than variations in stand structure, such as those brought about by outbreaks. Preemptive thinning may reduce susceptibility to small outbreaks but is unlikely to reduce susceptibility to large, landscape-scale epidemics. Once beetle populations reach widespread epidemic levels, silvicultural strategies aimed at stopping them are not likely to reduce forest susceptibility to outbreaks. Furthermore, such silvicultural treatments could have substantial, unintended short- and long-term ecological costs associated with road access and an overall degradation of natural areas.

Sarewitz’s New Year’s Resolution for Scientists

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obama science

I always appreciate Dan Sarewitz’s take on the social workings of the science biz. When I returned from my Solstice Break, I found this interesting piece on Roger Pielke, Jrs’ blog. Thanks to Roger for posting this and the image above.

One of the things I’ve noticed in the past is that our community (the forestry and natural resources community) may not be linked into the a community that studies the scientific process and how scientific information is used in policy-making (hence the discussion in the planning rule about “consistent with”), and that since there is such a community, their findings should be “taken into account” ;).

Here’s a link directly to Sarewitz’s article.

Here is an excerpt:

As scientists seek to provide policy-relevant knowledge on complex, interdisciplinary problems ranging from fisheries depletion and carbon emissions to obesity and natural hazards, the boundary between the natural and the social sciences has blurred more than many scientists want to acknowledge. With Republicans generally sceptical of government’s ability and authority to direct social and economic change, the enthusiasm with which leading scientists align themselves with the Democratic party can only reinforce conservative suspicions that for contentious issues such as climate change, natural-resource management and policies around reproduction, all science is social science.

The US scientific community must decide if it wants to be a Democratic interest group or if it wants to reassert its value as an independent national asset. If scientists want to claim that their recommendations are independent of their political beliefs, they ought to be able to show that those recommendations have the support of scientists with conflicting beliefs. Expert panels advising the government on politically divisive issues could strengthen their authority by demonstrating political diversity. The National Academies, as well as many government agencies, already try to balance representation from the academic, non-governmental and private sectors on many science advisory panels; it would be only a small step to be equally explicit about ideological or political diversity. Such information could be given voluntarily.

To connect scientific advice to bipartisanship would benefit political debate. Volatile issues, such as the regulation of environmental and public-health risks, often lead to accusations of ‘junk science’ from opposing sides. Politicians would find it more difficult to attack science endorsed by avowedly bipartisan groups of scientists, and more difficult to justify their policy preferences by scientific claims that were contradicted by bipartisan panels.

While I strongly agree that partisanizing is bad for the science biz, and actually, for life in general, I see things a bit differently than Dan. Since scientists, for the most part, determine what is funded and how the questions are framed, putting scientists (if they exist) from different parties on a committee that addresses “the science” brings all those biases into the advisory committee. I would prefer the more open 8 step process I proposed in this earlier blog post.

When Dan says that to Republicans “all science is social science” it seems to imply (I don’t think he meant to do so) that social science is somehow “less than” the other sciences. Rather, I think what Republicans might think is that the scientists who conducted the research did not share their framing of the issue or were not unbiased. One thing I like about social scientists is that mostly they are more honest about the social construction of problems and solutions. I have actually found them, in general, to do less “sleight of science” than the biological or physical folks.

Roger’s post is also worth a read as he explores some additional topics. including:

The issues, however, have not disappeared. A few weeks ago, the Union of Concerned Scientists observed in the case of genetically modified salmon:

Despite what the President might have said about scientific integrity, we’ve seen White House interference on what should be science regulatory decisions.

A list of troubling issues under the Obama Administration where science and politics meet is, well, almost Bush-like, and includes issues related to drilling safety, the muzzling of scientists at USDA and at HHS, clothing political decisions in dodgy scientific claims on the morning after pill and Yucca Mountain, the withholding of scientific information for fear of political fallout … and the list goes on

To me those aren’t “science” decisions.. simply not. They are political decisions that balance different values. “Scientific” information is only one kind to be considered. Partisanizing this by environmental groups seems to have led to a great deal of commotion and angst (and poor public servants required to write “scientific integrity” guidelines), followed by the inevitable disappointment when it turns out.. they are not “science” issues.

What do you think?

Forest Service withdraws controversial CE Decision Memo

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Two months ago we had a discussion about the appropriate, or inappropriate, use of a Categorical Exclusion (CE) relating to the Lewis and Clark National Forest’s “Little Belt Mountain Hazard Tree Removal Project” in central Montana.  This followed other debates on this blog about the use of CE’s (here and here).

According to the Alliance for Wild Rockies, the use of a CE for this project – which they contend would result in logging over 17,000 acres of national forest lands, including logging in Inventoried Roadless Areas, Wilderness Study Areas, Research Natural Areas, and old-growth forests – was inappropriate, so they sued.

On Thursday, Lewis and Clark National Forest Supervisor, William Avey, sent out this letter to interested parties, letting the public know he was withdrawing the CE Decision Memo and intending “to prepare an environmental assessment to provide evidence and analysis for determining whether to prepare an environmental impact statement or a finding of no significant impact for the Little Belt Mountains Hazard Tree Removal Project.”

Climate change increases stress, need for restoration on grazed public lands

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The following article was written by David Stauth.  The entire scientific study is available here.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Eight researchers in a new report have suggested that climate change is causing additional stress to many western rangelands, and as a result land managers should consider a significant reduction, or in some places elimination of livestock and other large animals from public lands.

A growing degradation of grazing lands could be mitigated if large areas of Bureau of Land Management and USDA Forest Service lands became free of use by livestock and “feral ungulates” such as wild horses and burros, and high populations of deer and elk were reduced, the group of scientists said.

This would help arrest the decline and speed the recovery of affected ecosystems, they said, and provide a basis for comparative study of grazing impacts under a changing climate. The direct economic and social impacts might also be offset by a higher return on other ecosystem services and land uses, they said, although the report focused on ecology, not economics.

Their findings were reported today in Environmental Management, a professional journal published by Springer.

“People have discussed the impacts of climate change for some time with such topics as forest health or increased fire,” said Robert Beschta, a professor emeritus in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University, and lead author on this study. “However, the climate effects on rangelands and other grazing lands have received much less interest,” he said. “Combined with the impacts of grazing livestock and other animals, this raises serious concerns about soil erosion, loss of vegetation, changes in hydrology and disrupted plant and animal communities. Entire rangeland ecosystems in the American West are getting lost in the shuffle.”

Livestock use affects a far greater proportion of BLM and Forest Service lands than do roads, timber harvest and wildfires combined, the researchers said in their study. But effort to mitigate the pervasive effects of livestock has been comparatively minor, they said, even as climatic impacts intensify.

Although the primary emphasis of this analysis is on ecological considerations, the scientists acknowledged that the changes being discussed would cause some negative social, economic and community disruption.

“If livestock grazing on public lands were discontinued or curtailed significantly, some operations would see reduced incomes and ranch values, some rural communities would experience negative economic impacts, and the social fabric of those communities could be altered,” the researchers wrote in their report, citing a 2002 study.

Among the observations of this report:

• In the western U.S., climate change is expected to intensify even if greenhouse gas emissions are dramatically reduced.

• Among the threats facing ecosystems as a result of climate change are invasive species, elevated wildfire occurrence, and declining snowpack.

• Federal land managers have begun to adapt to climate-related impacts, but not the combined effects of climate and hooved mammals, or ungulates.

• Climate impacts are compounded from heavy use by livestock and other grazing ungulates, which cause soil erosion, compaction, and dust generation; stream degradation; higher water temperatures and pollution; loss of habitat for fish, birds and amphibians; and desertification.

• Encroachment of woody shrubs at the expense of native grasses and other plants can occur in grazed areas, affecting pollinators, birds, small mammals and other native wildlife.

• Livestock grazing and trampling degrades soil fertility, stability and hydrology, and makes it vulnerable to wind erosion. This in turn adds sediments, nutrients and pathogens to western streams.

• Water developments and diversion for livestock can reduce streamflows and increase water temperatures, degrading habitat for fish and aquatic invertebrates.

• Grazing and trampling reduces the capacity of soils to sequester carbon, and through various processes contributes to greenhouse warming.

• Domestic livestock now use more than 70 percent of the lands managed by the BLM and Forest Service, and their grazing may be the major factor negatively affecting wildlife in 11 western states. In the West, about 175 taxa of freshwater fish are considered imperiled due to habitat-related causes.

• Removing or significantly reducing grazing is likely to be far more effective, in cost and success, than piecemeal approaches to address some of these concerns in isolation.

The advent of climate change has significantly added to historic and contemporary problems that result from cattle and sheep ranching, the report said, which first prompted federal regulations in the 1890s.

Wild horses and burros are also a significant problem, this report suggested, and high numbers of deer and elk occur in portions of the West, partially due to the loss or decline of large predators such as cougars and wolves. Restoring those predators might also be part of a comprehensive recovery plan, the researchers said.

The problems are sufficiently severe, this group of researchers concluded, that they believe the burden of proof should be shifted. Those using public lands for livestock production should have to justify the continuation of ungulate grazing, they said.

Collaborators on this study included researchers from the University of Wyoming, Geos Institute, Prescott College, and other agencies.

Eight Steps to Vet Scientific Information for Policy Fitness

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Peer review- necessary but not sufficient.

For some mysterious reason, my previous post here on the GAO report on the Forest Service has received a great many hits on the blog over the past few weeks. I am interpreting that to mean that at least some readers are interested in the science/policy interface, but who knows? Anyway, this has led to writing a series of posts on my observations on the scientific enterprise. Those who are not interested feel free to flip past.

So here is something I wrote recently, thanks to Bob Zybach and the folks at ESIPRI, when asked what I think a good process would look like for vetting research studies to be used in policy.

Eight Steps to Vet Scientific Information for Policy Fitness

Peer review as currently practiced is probably fine for deciding among proposals or which articles should be published in journals. However, I think that when public funding is at stake for major investments, and people’s lives and property are on the line, we should up our game in terms of review to a more professional level. I was recently asked my thoughts on how to do that, and here they are. It takes all eight steps, outlined below.

1. Is the research structured to answer the policy question? Often the policy question is nuanced.. say, “what should we do to protect homes from wildland fires and protect public and firefighter safety?” This is often where research goes off the rails. Say, historic vegetation ecologists study the past and claim that there was plenty of fire in the past.. but that information is actually not particularly relevant to the policy question. To get funding to do the study (and make the claim that it’s relevant), all they need to do is to pass a panel of scientists who basically use the “it sounds plausible to a person unfamiliar with the policy issues” criterion.

It seems obvious, but for scientific information to be policy relevant, policy folks have to be involved in framing the question. Most, if not all, research production systems that I am aware of do not have this step.

2. Did they choose the right disciplines and/or methods to answer the policy question? Clearly a variety of disciplines could have some useful contribution, as well as an inherent conflict of interest, if you rely on them to tell you if they are relevant or not.

3. Statistical review by a statistician. If you use statistics, this needs to be reviewed, not by a peer, but by a statistician. You can’t depend on journals to do this. The Forest Service used to have station statisticians (and still does?) to review proposals so people worked out their differences in thinking and experimental design before the project was too far down the road.

4. The Quality Assurance /Quality Controls (QA/QC) procedures for the equipment used and data need to be documented (and also reviewed by others). For someone who is unfamiliar with QA/QC applications, you might start with the recent paper attached (lockhart_2009_forest-policy-and-economics), it has a number of citations, and also the implications of the Data Quality Act. What is odd is that the NAPAP program led the way for QA/QC, but it’s not clear how that has been carried forward to today. It might be interesting to take the top-cited papers in forest ecology or management or whatever policy-relevant field you choose and review their QA/QC procedures.

5. Traditional within-discipline peer review.

6. Careful review of the logic path from facts found to conclusions drawn. It is natural for universities or other institutions to hype the importance of research findings. Since people will also use the findings to promote their own policy agenda, and because a paper can be misused even if the scientist is careful (e.g. 4 Mile Fire), it is more important to be specific and careful about your interpretation and conclusions. It is also best that if the findings lead to conclusions that are outside those of the current general consensus, that the authors forthrightly discuss different hypotheses for why their findings are different. Don’t just let the press hype “new findings show” as if the previous studies were irrelevant. The authors know more than anyone else about it, so they should be willing to share what they think about the differences an upfront way. That’s how “science” is supposed to progress, by building on previous work.

7. An important part of professional review for studies involving models should be “what background work did you do?“ Did you use sensitivity analysis for your assumptions? Did you compare model projections to the real world? If not, why not? In fact, the relationship of empirical data to your work should be clearly described, since scientific information derives its legitimacy from its predictive value in the real world, not from being a group hug of scientists within a discipline.

8. Post publication requirements: access by the public to data and open online review. This should be absolutely required for use in important policy discussions.

Do you agree? Do you have additions or deletions or other comments? Why do you think the bar is currently so low in terms of review?”

New Research: California spotted owls and burned forests

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Photo of female and juvenile California spotted owl courtesy of University of California Cooperative Extension (http://ucanr.org/sites/spottedowl/).
http://ucanr.org/sites/spottedowl/

New research has just been published concerning the relationship of burned forests and California spotted owls.  “Dynamics of California Spotted Owl breeding-season site occupancy in burned forests“ – from researchers D. E. Lee, M.L. Bond and R.B. Siegel – was just published in the latest edition of The Condor, an international journal pertaining to the biology of wild bird species. 

Abstract.  Understanding how habitat disturbances such as forest fire affect local extinction and probability of colonization – the processes that determine site occupancy – is critical for developing forest management appropriate to conserving the California Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis occidentalis), a subspecies of management concern.  We used 11 years of breeding-season survey data from 41 California Spotted Owl sites burned in six forest fires and 145 sites in unburned areas throughout the Sierra Nevada, California, to compare probabilities of local extinction and  colonization at burned and unburned sites while accounting for annual and site-specific variation in detectability.  We found no significant effects of fire on these probabilities, suggesting that fire, even fire that burns on average 32% of suitable habitat at high severity within a California Spotted Owl site, does not threaten the persistence of the subspecies on the landscape. We used simulations to examine how different allocations of survey effort over 3 years affect estimability and bias of parameters and power to detect differences in colonization and local extinction between groups of sites. Simulations suggest that to determine whether and how habitat disturbance affects California Spotted Owl occupancy within 3 years, managers should strive to annually survey greater than 200 affected and  greater than200 unaffected  historical owl sites throughout the Sierra Nevada 5 times per year. Given the low probability of detection in one year,  we recommend more than one year of surveys be used to determine site occupancy before management that could be detrimental to the Spotted Owl is undertaken in potentially occupied habitat.

FS Klamath Timber Sale Threatens Old-Growth Forest

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I just ran across this action alert from the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center:

Sometimes the Forest Service just can’t let go of a bad idea. For years timber planners on the Salmon/Scott River District of the Klamath National Forest in California have wanted to log the native forests at the “Little Cronan” timber sale.

This is about the worst place possible for a timber sale- Currently these old-growth forests provide spotted owl habitat and riparian reserves near the Wild and Scenic eligible North Fork Salmon River. Further, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed the area as “critical” for the protection and recovery of spotted owls.

The Forest Service is proposing to build log landings and designate bulldozer skid trails in this Key Watershed for salmon recovery and even hopes to open-up “riparian reserves” for logging.

At a time when many communities are coming together to embrace restoration forestry, why return to the dark ages of riparian old-growth logging in a Key Watershed for at-risk species?

Take action here and let the Forest Service know how you feel.

Telling The Forest Service Side of the Story: Lookout Mountain Project

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Banners hung from Bend highways – and on a log deck, state protesters’ view that Deschutes National Forest is removing old-growth trees in thinning project; Forest Service denies claims

This is an example of the FS getting its side of the story out there. Good on them and to KTVZ for publishing it here.

Here’s a quote from the FS side:

The EXF Thinning, Fuels Reduction and Research Project is a collaborative effort between the Deschutes National Forest and the Pacific Northwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service. The project site, in the Lookout Mountain Unit of the Pringle Falls Experimental Forest, is located west of La Pine and about three miles east of Crane Prairie Reservoir.

· The Lookout Mountain Unit of the Pringle Falls Experimental Forest was established in 1937 as a center for forest silviculture, management, and insect and disease research in ponderosa pine forests east of the Cascade Range. Today’s dense forests on Lookout Mountain were established primarily after two stand-replacement wildfires that occurred around 1845 and 1900. The road system was constructed in the 1960s. Over the last 35 years, vegetation research treatments have occurred on 2,534 of the 3,535 acres within the Lookout Mountain Unit.

· Planned research will improve our understanding of how management actions influence forest structure and dynamics over time, including the effects of thinning and fuels reduction treatments on forest resiliency during a period of potential climatic change.

· Planned management actions will maintain growth of trees through thinning, leave forests more resilient to drought, reduce their susceptibility to forest insects, and reduce the risk of significant loss from wildfire.

And from “concerned citizen Jeffrey Kingsley from Milton-Freewater Oregon” (8 miles s of Walla Walla Washington, 272 miles from Bend).

Going up to Lookout after logging operations started was devastating. The forest service claims to be worried about fires but let logging crews leave piles of slash two stories high along with other debris strewn throughout the area creating much more fire risk than the intact forest we saw there before. You can see huge log decks of old growth trees cut to line the pockets of industry at the expense of recreation, wildlife, and the last intact scenic ponderosa pine forests.” said Kingsley.

Hmm. Of course, they will treat the slash, also it appears to me after having a chance to discuss the project with various involved individuals, it is a research project. I’m sure that industry is happy to get it, but that’s not the point. Does Mr. Kingsley really believe that PNW scientists design their projects to benefit the timber industry? Or why else say it?

Another piece of the FS story is that civil servants must always be reasonable and civil. That seems to be a disadvantage in any competition of impugning motives and inflammatory rhetoric.

Here’s another piece, by Karen Coulter, the director of the Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project, an environmental advocacy organization based in Fossil, Ore.(about 100 miles away)

The court ruling on EXF granted extraordinary deference to the agency because the timber sales are on an experimental forest and did not otherwise address our legal claims regarding the wrongful use of a unique intact block of old growth forest on public lands.

Note the response to the claims in the comments..

But it is really “wrongful” to do experiments on an experimental forest?

And what do the environmental groups in Bend think? Why are only people from far away quoted? I guess the good news might be that there aren’t any questionable projects on closer National Forests, so they have to range more widely to find projects to appeal?