What Should Plans Do?

Wanted: New Planning Paradigm

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A guest post by Lynn Jungwirth

Clearly modern forest plans must have a restoration plan embedded in them. We’ve been struggling here lately with trying to figure out “how much is enough”. Currently “cumulative effect” means that you figure out where the threshold is for negative impact….how many roaded acre equivalents can happen before you have tipped the watershed into an unacceptable trajectory. But if we are going to be planning for restoration and maintenance of ecosystem function, we do not have an equivalent cumulative effect analysis for when you reach a threshold which means the system is on a good trajectory and can take care of itself, or is at least adequately repaired or resilient in the face of projected climate change.

How could a forest planning rule help us make that investigation?

I’m also pretty concerned that many of these place-based approaches in legislation are sort of just running over the forest planning process and again splitting the baby . wilderness vs industrial restoration seems so old fashioned. The forests have been run ragged with this either “too much” or “not enough” management approach. The 22nd Century seems to ask more of us. If we are truly going to wrestle with the integration of recreation, silviculture, restoration, ecosystem services, biodiversity, and an “all lands” approach, it seems that what is required in forest plans is going to be very very different than what we have now.

K.I.S.S. in Rule Form, Part 8

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The proposed K.I.S.S. rules are based on the premise that the Forest Service is revising forest plans, not promulgating new plans from scratch. This premise implies a rebuttable presumption that the existing plan’s provisions are satisfactory. NFMA supports this approach to plan revision.

For example, NFMA requires the Forest Service review timberland suitability decisions “at least every 10 years” and “return lands to timber production” when the Forest Service finds that “conditions have changed.” Thus, only if “conditions have changed” does the FS review its previously-made timberland suitability decisions. This mandate appears best met by adding to K.I.S.S.’s “new information or changed circumstances” assessment a new provision, as follows (addition is in italics):

36 CFR 219.3: Assessment of New Information and Changed Circumstances

(a) The revision shall assess (the “assessment”) new information and changed circumstances and conditions in the unit that are relevant to the decisions made in the land management plan. If the new information or changed circumstances and conditions warrant amendments to the land management plan, the land management plan amendments shall be assessed as a part of the vegetation management and timber harvest program’s NEPA document. If the land management plan amendments, singly or in combination with the vegetation management and timber harvest program, require an environmental impact statement pursuant to Section 102(2)(C) of the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”), 42 U.S.C. § 4321 et seq., an environmental impact statement shall be prepared.

(b) The assessment shall determine whether new information or changed circumstances warrant a review of lands the Forest Service has classified as suitable or unsuitable for timber production. The review shall focus on, but is not limited to, lands proposed for timber harvest in the plan revision’s vegetation management and timber harvest program.

K.I.S.S. in Rule Form, Part 7

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K.I.S.S. in Rule Form, Part 7

Keeping-it-simple-sweet means omitting matters from the NFMA rules that are satisfactorily covered by statute. For example, a section of NFMA (paragraph i) separate from the planning rule sections (paragraphs g and h) requires that permits (e.g., special-use permits) and contracts (e.g., stewardship, sale of timber) “for the use and occupancy” of the national forests be consistent with the plan.

There is no need to repeat this requirement in the planning rules themselves. The law speaks for itself. Forest Service employees can read the law. And the courts have routinely enforced paragraph (i) without reference to the identical 1982 NFMA rule. So I’ve deleted item 7 (“Ensure that, subject to valid existing rights, all outstanding and future permits, contracts, cooperative agreements, and other instruments for occupancy and use of affected lands are consistent with the revised plan”) from the K.I.S.S. purpose and principles post.

K.I.S.S. in Rule Form, Part 6

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No NFMA provision has transformed (and bedeviled) national forest management more than the law’s mandate to “provide for diversity of plant and animal communities based on the suitability and capability of the specific land area.” 16 U.S.C. § 1604(g)(3)(B). The consensus view of the federal courts (citations upon request) is that NFMA’s diversity language is a substantive limit on the Forest Service’s discretion – procedural analysis and models alone are insufficient to meet the law.

In its 1982 (and original 1979) rules, the Forest Service met the diversity mandate by requiring that plans ensure the viability of animal species, which is accomplished by identifying and protecting management indicator species. This approach to meeting the diversity requirement was never challenged in court. Those courts that have commented upon the viability/management indicator species approach have done so favorably. Regulatory efforts to eliminate the viability/MIS rule were defeated in 1982 (by Congressional pressure) and in 2000, 2005, and 2008 (in the courts).

It is with this history in mind that I suggest the following diversity rule language. This provision relies upon the 1979/1982 rules, but with fewer words and more discretion in the methodologies individual national forests can use to meet the law’s substantive mandate.

36 CFR 219.7: Plant and Animal Community Diversity

(a) Plan revisions and the vegetation management and timber harvest program shall ensure habitat sufficient to support viable populations of existing native and desired non-native species in the planning area. Methodologies for assessing and ensuring species viability shall consider and be appropriate to 1) the scope and scale of the plan revision and program decisions made; 2) the ecology of the plan area; and, 3) the biology of the species.

(b) Plan revisions and the vegetation management and timber harvest program shall, to the degree practicable, preserve the diversity of tree species similar to that existing in the plan region.

K.I.S.S. in Rule Form, Part 5

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In drafting these K.I.S.S. model rules, I look first at what the original 1979 and subsequent 1982 rules have to say on each subject. I use the 1979 rules because I have a ragged paper copy of that day’s federal register with the rules in it. This heirloom was given to me when I was hired as an assistant to teach NFMA planning to Forest Service interdisciplinary teams. My boss told me to read the rules, which were hot of the press, and be prepared to “teach” them the following week. I look to the 1982 rules because they are the rules under which all forest plans were promulgated.

It was with some amusement that I noticed, for the first time, that the 1982 rules fail to faithfully implement NFMA’s nominal public participation requirement (see the link’s paragraph (d)). I have fixed that problem below:

36 CFR 219.6: Public Participation

(a) The revised land management plan shall be made available to the public electronically and at convenient locations in the vicinity of the unit for a period of at least three months before the revised plan is adopted. During this three-month period, public meetings at locations that foster public participation in the plan revision shall be held.

(b) If the land management plan revisions, singly or in combination with the vegetation management and timber harvest program, require an environmental impact statement pursuant to Section 102(2)(C) of the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”), 42 U.S.C. § 4321 et seq., the public participation process set forth in Council on Environmental Quality regulations, 40 CFR Part 1500 et seq., shall be followed.

(c) In addition to the requirements of (a) and (b) above, other processes suited to the decisions made in the plan revision, including the vegetation management and timber harvest program, may be used to involve the public.

K.I.S.S. in Rule Form, Part 4

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After a day listening to ecologists talk about landscape models, I am further inspired to urge planning rules that keep-it-simple-sweet.

There are three kinds of government rules. Most government rules regulate the behavior of private concerns, e.g., point-source pollution and building codes. A few regulate the behavior of other government agencies, e.g., Endangered Species Act consultation and CEQ NEPA process. Fewer still self-regulate an agency’s own behavior. The NFMA planning rule falls in this last category.

I don’t know about you, but if I wrote enforceable rules to regulate my own behavior, I’d make sure the rules were as spare and flexible as possible. Thus I offer the following rules to implement NFMA’s inventory and interdisciplinary mandates:

36 CFR 219.4: Inventories

The revision shall be based upon inventory data, maps, graphic material, and explanatory aids, of a kind, character, and quality, and to the detail appropriate for the land management plan revisions and vegetation management and timber harvest program decisions made.

36 CFR 219.5: Interdisciplinary Preparation

An interdisciplinary approach shall be used in the revision of the land management plan. The disciplines of the preparers shall be appropriate to: 1) the formulation of the vegetation management and timber harvest program; and, 2) the new information and changed circumstances and conditions in the unit that warrant revision of the plan.

Ecosystem Services: The New Multiple-Use Idea

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So what’s the value of a forest?

In a previous post, I described the shift away from the Forest Service’s multiple-use mission to a sustainable ecosystem mission.  Many public stakeholders are confused by this shift, including those that rely on forest uses and services.  The same is true for Forest Service employees trained in multiple-use management.  Often, it’s about having a voice, or being able to clearly articulate these viewpoints, as the dialogue shifts toward concepts such as resilience, ecosystem integrity, ecological function, restoration of degraded ecosystems, etc.  As an example of this new framework, see the interim directive FSM 2020-2008-1, intended as a “foundational policy” for all restoration activities. 

In the shorthand about sustainability, we sometimes forget the reason we want to achieve sustainable management.  In Forest Plans, we talk about desired conditions, but we don’t describe why they are desired. 

The interim FSM 2020 explains the reason for ecological restoration and maintenance of resilience:  “to provide a broad range of ecosystem services.” 

It really isn’t much of a leap at all to move from the idea of multiple-uses to the idea of multiple-services.  The 1960 Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act itself explains that multiple use results in both products and services.  The idea of ecosystem services draws on these concepts, and extends the idea by attempting to categorize all of the benefits.   In particular, one framework getting attention was developed for the worldwide U.N. Millenium Ecosystem Assessment.  It divides services into four categories:

1. The provisioning “uses”, including those mentioned in the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act: timber and grazing. 

2  The cultural services, including recreation.  It would also include things like historical and heritage appreciation, and the experiences people have in the forest that create feelings of solitude or aesthetic appreciation.  The diversity of wildlife could fall into this category also.

3. The regulating services, including streamflow or flood control, alteration of fire, and influence on climate.  The role of wildlife species in ecological processes is also important.

4.  The supporting services for the other three categories, like soil formation and retention, or production of atmospheric oxygen.

Based on the Farm Bill, the Department of Agriculture has established an office for ecosystem services, now called the Office of Environmental Markets, to explore the development of markets.  For Forest Service planners who suffered through the economic requirements of the 1982 planning rule, this is a bit scary.  The same type of linear programming models used in forest planning to maximize sustained yield of timber are now being used to maximize carbon storage.  Economists are working on ways to value services.  We should encourage qualitative descriptions of services.  The director of the office, Sally Collins, advised a slow-cautious approach to these issues in a 2007 speech:

Resist the impulse to jump on the ecosystem services bandwagon in response to the Forestry Blues—but also resist the impulse to dismiss it as the latest in a series of attempts to redefine forestry. It is what it is, and forestry in America and the world is what it is.

The idea of ecosystem services was introduced in the December 18 Federal Register notice for a new planning rule.  This may be a chance for the Forest Service to embrace its multiple-use roots while articulating the importance of intact, functioning ecosystems.

The RPA/NFMA/NFMA: Solution to a Nonexistent Problem- R.W Behan

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A wise colleague suggested that it might be time again to take a look at this article from the May 1990 Journal of Forestry. Here are some quotes from the paper:

Planning has literally become an end in itself, with a large…interest group.. dedicated to its continuation

The National Forest Management Act is indeed an elegant solution to a nonexistent problem.

Thanks again to the Society of American Foresters for allowing us to post this paper on our blog.
Also note that it was originally published in Western Wildlands, a publication of our friends at the University of Montana.

Start with the Human Scale- Elinor Ostrom

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Guest Post by Lynn Jungwirth

I asked Fran Korten, who interviewed Elinor Ostrom (2009 Nobel Prize winner in economics) for “Yes Magazine”, about
the difficulties with “large landscape level planning”. This answer came
back:

“Yes, there’s a role for large landscape level planning, but when you get
down to implementation, it’s got to be at smaller levels. As Lin puts it,
you’ve got to have decision making and implementation in nested tiers that
start at the human-scale level and stack up to the larger resource.”

Wow! “Starting at the human-scale level and stack up to the larger
resource.” We do it exactly opposite. Start with the National Level, then
the Forest Level, and then try to make the local level fit in with those
goals and constraints. Maybe we should invite Elinor Ostrom and her team to
work with this planning rule.

Excerpt from the “Yes” interview. Here’s the link.

Elinor Ostrom:
At the Workshop we’ve done experiments where we create an artificial form of
common property-such as an imaginary fishery or pasture, and we bring people
into a lab and have them make decisions about that property. When we don’t
allow any communication among the players, then they overharvest. But when
people can communicate, particularly on a face-to-face basis, and say,
“Well, gee, how about if we do this? How about we do that?” Then they can
come to an agreement.

Fran: But what about the “free-rider” problem-where some people abide by the
rules and some people don’t? Won’t the whole thing fall apart?

Elinor: Well if the people don’t communicate and get some shared norms and
rules, that’s right, you’ll have that problem. But if they get together and
say, “Hey folks, this is a project that we’re all going to have to
contribute to. Now, let’s figure it out,” they can make it work. For
example, if it’s a community garden, they might say, “Do we agree every
Saturday morning we’re all going to go down to the community garden, and
we’re going to take roll and we’re going to put the roll up on a bulletin
board?” A lot of communities have figured out subtle ways of making everyone
contribute, because if they don’t, those people are noticeable.

Imagining A Changing Forest

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A desired condition is not a picture.  It’s a movie.

This is a map of four seral stages for the Pagosa Springs district of the San Juan National Forest.  Young stands of trees (class 1) are very rare.  So are the purple areas representing the oldest stands of trees (class 4).  Most of the map shows middle-aged stands (red and green).  Think about how this information might be used in forest planning.  For instance, the purple areas might be important habitat for late-seral stage wildlife species, they might be mapped as ecological reserves, or they might have some unique social values we want to protect.

Here is a simulation of what could happen to these stands of trees over time due to fire, insects and disease.  Each interval in the movie is a 10-year increment.   It is based on work by Kevin McGarigal of the University of Massachusetts and Bill Romme now at CSU, for the San Juan Forest Plan Revision using a GIS-based simulator called RMLANDS.  It formed an understanding of the historical range of variability of vegetation for the DEIS.

The stand size and distribution is most dependent upon fire interval and fire size, randomly simulated based on historical data.  Over time, the tree conditions seem to float across the landscape like shifting sand.  There are some places where topography seems to influence the disturbances to allow persistence of older trees, but even these areas are eventually affected by the random events.

The smaller the scale, the larger the variation.  If you look at a particular place, there is more change over time in the color of the place.  The larger the scale, there is more likelihood that you’ll find the color you are looking for somewhere.

When planning for forests influenced by disturbance, landscape ecologists advise us that it’s important to think of time and space.   It calls for a discussion beyond static desired conditions.  Instead, a discussion is needed on the disturbance processes, if anything should be or can be done to shape those processes, and what we should do with the conditions that might result.  This is a very different type of forest plan than we have done in the past.