Friends of the Florida Trail, Inc. v. Thomas (D. N. Florida). The plaintiff claims the Forest Service violated NEPA and the National Scenic Trails Act when it approved the 90-mile Big Bend Reroute of the Florida National Scenic Trail using a categorical exclusion.
After the Southern Sierra Nevada DPS of the Pacific fisher was listed as endangered on May 15, 2020, the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife completed a programmatic consultation on 40 proposed projects involving the logging and removal of trees and other vegetation across the Sierra, Sequoia, and Stanislaus National Forests. On September 3, Unite the Parks, Sequoia ForestKeeper, and the John Muir Project notified the agencies of their intent to sue for failure to adequately analyze the effects on the fisher.
(Update.) After the government filed a notice of appeal of the Alaska district court’s reversal of the Prince of Wales Landscape Level Analysis Project for the Tongass National Forest (discussed here), they changed their minds. They are now proceeding with a more traditional timber sale project involving 3,000 acres of old-growth forest.
(Update – EPIC v. Carlson.) The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has denied requests by the Forest Service and intervenors to rehear this case involving an unreasonable interpretation of the road repair and maintenance categorical exclusion for the Ranch Fire Roadside Hazard Tree Project on the Mendocino National Forest (discussed here). (When I worked with this forest supervisor earlier in her career she didn’t like my advice either.)
It’s that time again… I’m looking for contributions on “ideas for a new administration”. A blog post is 500-700 words. I’m sure many of you have ideas. Why share them on The Smokey Wire?
We can help you refine your ideas through our usual vigorous exchange and review. My thinking is that any administration tends to hear from the folks on “their side” of issues, and they could potentially be limiting the ideas that they consider. We can also help you think of ways your idea could be implemented (statutory or rule change, etc.)
The Forest Service (as well as other institutions) is not always known as a place where creative ideas are greeted with enthusiasm, so any current employees may find a supportive environment for their creativity here.
Here are some possible ticklers:
(1) One candidate said that his goal is to unite people across partisan lines. Maybe the other candidate will decide to do that also? What programs or processes would you suggest to convert that idea from words to behavior? What metrics could we use to rate him on this in four years?
(2) What do you see as a “low hanging fruit” that would help save money or make things run better?
(3) What is something that could really help federal lands and the people who manage them, but neither party has been interested in. Possibly because politically there is no powerful group pushing for it and the political calculus doesn’t work out to push it. But.. it would help.
Please send potential posts to my email. It’s under the donate widget to the right. All can add more ticklers or brief ideas below. For whatever reason you might wish to do so, anonymous submissions are welcome.
I ran across this interesting idea from Sara Sutherland at PERC. There are many dams on FS land. I wonder if it would make sense to harmonize regulations for dam permittees across BLM, NPS and FS, possibly with some kind of negotiated transition period? It’s interesting to think about the idea “are they paying “enough” and what you would base “enoughness” on. Sutherland has some ideas, including the benefits of a dam-free valley.
In 2018, Yosemite National Park had the highest deferred maintenance backlog of any national park in the country, with $646 million worth of overdue maintenance projects. The park may have a long-overlooked source of funding to tap for maintaining and preserving the public’s access to its scenic grandeur: an outdated lease on part of its property.
The Hetch Hetchy Valley, located entirely within the park, provides water to San Francisco and other Bay Area communities. In addition, San Francisco receives approximately one-tenth of its power from hydroelectricity generated by the gravity-driven flow from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. The 1913 Raker Act authorized the unprecedented dam inside the park and also set the fee that the city pays to rent the entire valley in which the dam sits: $30,000 per year. It may be the worst contract in the history of the National Park Service.
While the lease price has remained constant over the past century, the value of the valley has not. Yosemite today is exceptionally congested—it is the fifth most visited national park—and restoring the Hetch Hetchy Valley would increase both the quantity and quality of recreational opportunities available to the park’s 4.5 million annual visitors. A benefits-transfer study conducted by a consulting firm calculated the potential recreational-use value of undamming the valley to be between $1.7 billion and $5.4 billion.
San Francisco’s water supply is also valuable. The city earns about $440 million annually from the sale of Hetch Hetchy water to its own customers and other municipalities. Thus, there is clearly a trade-off between keeping the dam and tearing it down. The former would continue to prevent recreation in the valley, while the latter would force the Bay Area to reassess its entire water supply. What is also clear is that under the current agreement, Yosemite, its visitors, and the American public are all losing.
In light of the park’s needs, the annual lease price San Francisco pays could be adjusted to raise revenue that could help maintain infrastructure inside the park, a move that would also be consistent with how other national parks structure their concessions and special-use contracts. Three methods can provide a range of potential lease prices.
A more equitable payment to the park from the city for its use of Hetch Hetchy water would provide enormous benefits for the 4.5 million people who visit the park each year. It is time to update the century-old arrangement between Yosemite and San Francisco.
Options to Adjust Hetch Hetchy Lease Price:
Account for inflation that has occured since the price was set by the Raker Act.
Treat San Francisco as a National Park Service concessioner and charge a franchise fee according to agency rules.
Set the annual price equal to the annual value of an undammed Hetch Hetchy Valley.
Previously constructed Hazardous Fuel Treatments near Estes Park, current October 24, 2020. It is not clear if the projects were prescribed fire, mechanical vegetation treatment, or both.
Fuel Treatments and Protecting Estes Park
One of the arguments against fuel treatments is basically that they are bad investments; 1. they don’t work, or 2. they do work, but not long enough to do any good without repeated applications, and 3. fires are unlikely to run into them (was it “only 1%” of areas are burned per year?). And yet.. we hear repeatedly of them actually working, usually in the sense of giving suppression folks some kind of an advantage. Also, if for example over 600K acres burned in Colorado in one year, you’d think that somewhere in the footprint of those acres have been some fuel treatments.
Firefighters on the Cameron Peak Fire tasked with handling the portion of the East Troublesome Fire threatening Estes Park did some serious firefighting Saturday, stopping the fire before it could spread into the wildland urban interface. They used existing fuel treatment areas where the vegetation had been thinned or removed, as an anchor from which to conduct a firing operation to widen the buffer between the fire and the community.
Paul Delmerico, the Operations Section Chief, Saturday night:
The fuels treatments helped significantly. Those fuels treatments are what gave us a really good defensive start to our day today when we saw that. It gave us something to work off of and to build off of.
The fire made a run just north of Moraine Park. Our firefighters picked up that [fuel treatment] and did a firing operation and held it just north of Moraine Park and then we had a couple of hand crews in there today and we picked that up with direct hand line. We were able to go up and over the ridge and back down and tie it in with existing road systems.
Our firefighters out there are doing a heck of a job. We had a really good day today, considering the fuel conditions and the weather conditions.
Wildland fire resources are scarce this time of the year with many crews losing their funding in September and October. Of the 113 Interagency Hotshot Crews in the U.S., only about 35 are still funded and available for fighting fire. In two weeks that number drops to around 13 according to projections in a September 30, 2020 planning document compiled by an Area Command Team (ACT).
There are also good comments on possible solutions.
As I was reading the Inciweb reports for some of the Colorado fires last week, it appeared that they were unable to get resources they had ordered because they were busy on other fires. It seems like that could have an impact on firefighting strategies and tactics, and ultimately acreage.
“This report contains a detailed cradle-to-gate life-cycle assessment method including data collection, development of life-cycle inventory, and life-cycle impact assessment for production of redwood lumber in the United States. The results illustrated that redwood lumber production has a very low carbon footprint (37.97 kg CO2e/m3 of lumber) and stores about 18 times more carbon compared with its cradle-to-gate carbon footprint.”
In 1993 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the Mexican spotted owl as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Photo by USFWS.
This issue has been discussed on this blog numerous times…and will certainly continued to be discussed.
SANTE FE, NEW MEXICO—WildEarth Guardians, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reached an agreement (here and here) to resolve a major legal dispute over threatened Mexican spotted owls and national forest protection in New Mexico and Arizona. A federal court issued an injunction on tree cutting on national forests in the Southwest that has been in place since September 2019. The injunction came in response to a lawsuit, originally filed in 2013 by WildEarth Guardians.
The agreement requires the U.S. Forest Service to comply with the Endangered Species Act by conducting annual Mexican spotted owl population trend monitoring through 2025, the key legal dispute at issue and the legal basis for the federal judge’s order that the agency had violated the Act.
“This agreement provides a framework for the Forest Service to better protect national forests and Mexican spotted owls,” said John Horning, Executive Director of WildEarth Guardians. “By agreeing to rigorously monitor species and track habitats, this management framework could be a national model for the Forest Service to protect and recover threatened and endangered species.”
The agreement also contemplates that the Forest Service will comply with the requirements of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s spotted owl recovery plan by identifying and protecting owls by surveying for owls prior to ground-disturbing activities and protecting those areas where owls are found and tracking long-term trends in the owl’s habitat. The agreement also establishes a Mexican spotted owl leadership forum, something the agency recently created. The agreement applies to all 11 national forests in Arizona and New Mexico, which cover over 20 million acres.
“WildEarth Guardians has tenaciously fought to protect the Mexican spotted owl and its ancient forest habitat since the mid-1990s, when the species was first recognized as threatened,” said Steve Sugarman, a Guardians founder and the attorney who litigated the case on behalf of WildEarth Guardians. “Hopefully, the comprehensive management framework contemplated by the agreement reached by Guardians and the Forest Service in this case will end the cycle of forest mismanagement and ensuing litigation.”
The agreement to end this litigation on the basis of a mutually agreed to management framework concludes the latest chapter in a 25-year saga over the management of Mexican spotted owls on national forests in the Southwest. During that period, beginning in 1996, the courts have sided with Guardians multiple times in its legal advocacy to assure that the Forest Service accounts for old-growth dependent species in its approach to national forest management in Arizona and New Mexico.
The agreement further requires the Forest Service to assess the effects of timber management activities such as logging, thinning, and prescribed burning on the owls and their habitat. The Forest Service will then use its monitoring data and assessments of effects, along with up-to-date scientific studies, to inform, constrain, and modify ongoing and future timber management in owl habitat.
“We have long contended that the Forest Service’s claims that logging is good for owls is not based on sound science,” stated Judi Brawer, WildEarth Guardians’ Wild Places Program Director. “This agreement requires the agency to finally assess the impacts of its timber management actions and adjust those actions accordingly to ensure that they do not harm the owls or their habitat.”
The parties negotiated the agreement over a six-month period and the ultimate product reflects the efforts of all of the parties to create a new paradigm for forest protection that will ensure that the agency funds, creates, and abides by the latest and best available science.
“The agreement’s greatest significance is that it brings citizens, science, and the law together in the way that the framers of environmental laws intended,” stated Horning “The foundational principle of environmental laws is that citizens uphold the laws. This is the core principle of healthy, functioning, and effective democracy, and one that is currently under direct threat.”
Background: WildEarth Guardians filed the case in March 12, 2013 over the agencies’ failure to ensure the recovery of the owl by collecting basic information, for more than 20 years, about the status of owl populations across the Southwest. In September 2019, a federal district court judge in Arizona ruled that the agencies have shirked their responsibilities to ensure that Forest Service management activities are making progress towards recovery of the Mexican spotted owl. The ruling halted all “timber management actions” on six national forests in New Mexico and Arizona, including all the national forests in New Mexico and the Tonto National Forest in Arizona.
As the September 2019 decision explains, the Forest Service was required to implement a population monitoring protocol for Mexican spotted owl since at least 1996. It was expected that, within 10-15 years, management activities such as logging and prescribed burning that the agencies claimed would improve owl habitat, supported by monitoring that would show the species recovery, would enable its de-listing from the Endangered Species Act. Yet, as the decision stated, “Over twenty years later, delisting has not occurred, and information about the current [Mexican spotted owl] population is still minimal.”
The West Elk Mountains in the Uncompahgre Field Office are threatened by coal mining under a plan illegally approved by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
Stay tuned, there will be more of these lawsuits coming because of the self-described Sagebrush Rebel’s unlawful tenure directing the Bureau of Land Management.
DENVER— Climate groups filed new legal claims today challenging the federal government’s 1.7 million-acre resource-management plan (RMP) to expand fossil fuel development in southwestern Colorado, saying it should be overturned because it was approved during William Perry Pendley’s unlawful tenure directing the Bureau of Land Management (“Bureau”).
“This amendment to our challenge of the Uncompahgre RMP reflects a reality that is now established legal precedent: Pendley’s authority as bureau director is invalid and planning decisions approved on his watch are likewise invalid,” said Melissa Hornbein, staff attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center. “The RMP is blatant in its disregard of the law, and our new claim merely reflects the fact that its legal failings stem from Pendley’s unlawful leadership of the bureau.”
Today’s claims follow a court order last week overturning three Pendley resource-management plans in Montana and a September ruling that Pendley’s 424-day tenure was unlawful. The legal filing also amends the groups’ August lawsuit challenging the resource plan for the Uncompahgre Field Office, which calls for more fracking and coal mining in one of the country’s fastest-warming regions.
“This is the first step in scrubbing the stain of Pendley’s corrupt, unlawful legacy from our public lands,” said Taylor McKinnon, a senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Pendley has built his career on industrializing and destroying public lands. He should never have been allowed to set foot in the building.”
“It’s critical that we undo all the damage done to public lands and the climate by the Bureau of Land Management and its sham leadership,” said Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians’ Climate and Energy Program director. “By confronting the illegal fossil fuel industry giveaway that is the Uncompahgre Resource Management Plan, we’re taking the steps needed to ensure protection of these irreplaceable lands and values.”
Under Pendley the Bureau of Land Management has amended resource-management plans to enable decades of fossil fuel expansion and climate pollution on public lands across the West. Climate groups have identified unlawful Pendley decisions that include at least 16 resource-management plans and other projects that open 30 million acres of public lands to oil and gas drilling, mining and grazing in Arizona, California, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Idaho and Utah. The plans range from expanding coal mining in Montana and open-pit copper mining in Arizona to allowing fracking across more than 1 million acres in California — the first leases since 2013.
“The bureau’s proposal of a new preferred Alternative E, out of whole cloth, in contradiction of state recommendations, in defiance of over 50,000 public comments, and outright disregard for protests from the state of Colorado, county and municipal governments, and the public were all under Pendley’s watch,” said Natasha Léger, executive director of Citizens for a Healthy Community. “The Uncompahgre RMP should be invalidated just like the Montana RMPs under his tenure.”
Resource-management plans are 20-year blueprints for public lands that govern every activity across the landscape, including which lands are open to fracking and drilling and which areas are protected for their ecological and wildlife values. The Bureau of Land Management director has sole decision-making authority over administrative protests that raise concerns about these plans.
“These public lands are a treasured resource, valued locally for their wildlands, wildlife, and opportunities for sustainable recreation,” said Matt Reed, public lands director at Gunnison County-based High Country Conservation Advocates. “Pendley has never recognized that, and we’re thankful that his ill-conceived tenure at the bureau has come to an end.”
In his September decision saying Pendley had served unlawfully, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris ruled that any duty that Pendley performed during his 424 days as acting director of the Bureau “would have no force and effect and must be set aside as arbitrary and capricious.”
“Pendley’s dirty fingerprints are all over this plan, which will further imperil the Gunnison sage-grouse,” said Talasi Brooks, a staff attorney with Western Watersheds Project. “The public shouldn’t have to live with such terrible decisions being made by an unlawfully appointed bureau director.”
“For 424 days, William Perry Pendley illegally ran the Bureau of Land Management as a one-stop-shop catering to the interests of oil and gas companies,” said Athan Manuel, Sierra Club director of public lands protection. “The decisions made during his unlawful tenure have had real and devastating effects on our communities, our environment, and our wildlife. We deserve a bureau that will protect our public lands and waters, not advance the agenda of dirty fossil fuels.”
Sapphire Wilderness Study Area, Bitterroot National Forest, Montana. Photo by Friends of the Bitterroot.
The following press release was issued today by Friends of the Bitterroot, Hellgate Hunters and Anglers, Missoula Back Country Horsemen, Selway-Pintler Wilderness Back Country Horsemen, WildEarth Guardians, Winter Wildlands Alliance, Montana Wilderness Association, and Earthjustice.
Seattle, WA – Today the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld protections for wilderness-quality lands within the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana against a rising tide of motorized and mechanized backcountry use. The court affirmed a 2018 Montana district court ruling which upheld the U.S. Forest Service’s 2016 Bitterroot National Forest Travel Plan against a legal challenge brought by motorized and mechanized users.
Earthjustice argued the case in defense of the 2016 Forest Plan on behalf of a broad coalition of Montanans including Friends of the Bitterroot, Hellgate Hunters and Anglers, Missoula Back Country Horsemen, Montana Wilderness Association, Selway-Pintler Wilderness Back Country Horsemen, WildEarth Guardians, and Winter Wildlands Alliance.
“The wilderness-quality lands the Travel Plan protects are important to people from all walks of life in the Bitterroot valley including hunters, fishermen, horsepackers, hikers, and skiers,” said Tim Preso, Earthjustice attorney. “The court’s decision ensures that these special places will continue to support elk and other wildlife and provide Montanans with outstanding opportunities for solitude and quiet recreation for years to come.”
“Friends of the Bitterroot is extremely pleased with this victory in court protecting mountain goats, wolverine, lynx and grizzly bears from the clear and present threats posed by motorized and mechanized recreation in Wilderness Study and Recommended Wilderness Areas on the Bitterroot National Forest,” said Larry Campbell, FOB Conservation Director. “FOB has persevered for over two decades to finally see iconic and rare wildlife given the protection they need for survival. There’s still plenty of places for people to play.”
“Today’s victory is a win for wild places and a clear rebuke of the challenge from motorized activists and those opposed to protecting wildlife habitat,” said Adam Rissien with WildEarth Guardians. “The Forest Service can now firmly reject political meddling from Sen. Daines who pressured the agency to ignore safeguards enacted in Montana’s 1977 Wilderness Study Act.”
“This plan was eight years in the making and informed by hundreds of Montanans who asked the Forest Service to protect habitat for wildlife; to ensure the headwaters of the Bitterroot River and Rock Creek remain clean and cold and its wild trout populations healthy; and to practice true multiple use in the Bitterroot National Forest,” said Erin Clark, western Montana field director with Montana Wilderness Association. “The plan leaves one third of the Forest open to snowmobiling and over 2,000 miles of road and trail open to mountain biking while adhering to the spirit and law of the Montana Wilderness Study Act.”
“Today’s ruling ensures that wild lands on the Bitterroot National Forest will remain protected in all seasons, providing refuge for wildlife and opportunities for human-powered winter adventure,” said Hilary Eisen, policy director with Winter Wildlands Alliance. “The plan strikes a fair balance between providing opportunities for snowmobiling and preserving quiet places for skiers, snowshoers, and others who seek opportunities for solitude and prefer to enjoy the backcountry at a slower pace. We’re pleased that the Court has upheld this balance.”
“The Backcountry Horsemen are delighted that these special areas will continue to be enjoyed for their quiet beauty and primitive travel by foot or horse,” said Dan Harper, vice president of the Backcountry Horsemen of Missoula Chapter.
“This ruling is a long-awaited victory for Montana’s wildlife and our conservation community,” said Walker Conyngham, president of Missoula-based Hellgate Hunters & Anglers. “Sportsmen and women recognize that the species we rely upon deserve healthy, undisturbed habitat in order to thrive. We look to this ruling as a clear precedent for preserving valuable wildlife sanctuaries like our wilderness study areas.
Historic Wolf Creek Boatworks v. United States of America (D. Alaska). The plaintiff claims the Forest Service violated 36 C.F.R. 251.54 in relation to non-renewal of a conditional use permit for operation of buildings on the Tongass National forest.
The Center for Biological Diversity and Western Watersheds Project have notified the Forest Service, BLM and Fish and Wildlife Service that they will challenge the failure to reinitiate ESA consultation on the Gunnison sage-grouse (as previously discussed here).
Bullock v. U.S. Bureau of Land Management(D. Mont.). The district court declared that the Lewistown Resource Management Plan (RMP), Missoula RMP, and Miles City RMP amendment are unlawful because the Acting BLM Director approved them in violation of the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, and the Administrative Procedure Act (which we discussed most recently here.)
BLOGGER’S BONUS
The replacement of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U. S. Supreme Court with a conservative justice has potentially stunning implications for many aspects of American life, including federal agencies. In particular, E&E News singled out her Congressional testimony (or lack thereof) on climate change
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) asked Barrett yesterday if she believed “human beings cause global warming.” “I don’t think I am competent to opine on what causes global warming or not,” Barrett answered. When pressed on the question, she added, “I don’t think that my views on global warming or climate change are relevant to the job I would do as a judge.”
In an exchange with Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) on Tuesday, Barrett dodged a climate question by saying she’s “not a scientist,” a talking point that is often used by Republican lawmakers who reject the underlying tenets of climate science (Climatewire, Oct. 14).
When grilled yesterday by Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Barrett again declined to recognize that human-caused greenhouse gases have caused global temperatures to rise by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit over the last century… Barrett countered by saying Harris, a vice presidential candidate, was leading her to reveal an opinion about a “very contentious matter.” “I will not express a view on a matter of public policy especially one that is politically controversial because that’s inconsistent with the judicial role as I have explained,” Barrett said.
Barrett has been tight-lipped on a gamut of issues over the course of the hearing, from health care to voting rights. But experts said her reluctance to acknowledge the scientific basis for climate change is notable. “Her response suggests that she either is a climate change denier or someone who is afraid of offending the President and his supporters in the fossil fuel industry,” Bob Percival, director of the environmental law program at the University of Maryland, said in an email. On Tuesday, “she was willing at least to acknowledge that there is racism in society. Climate change has now also become an obvious fact that intelligent people should not be afraid to acknowledge,” he added.
Others countered:
“Given the various deference doctrines, whether an appellate judge has firm views on climate science is not particularly important and should not have a significant influence on their opinions,” said Jonathan Adler, director of the environmental law center at Case Western Reserve University.
This has been my answer to questions Sharon always has about the role of judges. However, this very concept of judicial deference to administrative agencies could itself be remade under a conservative court. Business conservatives have wanted to get rid of “Chevron deference” to agencies regarding their regulations. This is most often discussed in relation to the more obviously regulatory laws like the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, but it could also lead to less judicial respect for decisions made by agencies under the Endangered Species Act or public land management laws. In theory this seems like it should cut both ways because agencies get sued by both ends of the political spectrum, but here is another possibility:
But, by repealing Chevron, the Supreme Court would essentially invite judicial policymaking, as activist judges would have freer rein to exploit unavoidable statutory ambiguities in order to substitute their own policy preferences. Or worse, it could halt agency action until Congress could pass legislative changes to resolve all ambiguity.
It seems like from this IUCN map that the US already has 37% of the marine area protected. Maybe someone can explain. Unfortunately the banner is over the identification of the data as from the US.
The resolution was introduced in the Senate by Senators Bennet of Colorado and Udall of New Mexico. Rumor has it that Udall is being considered for Secretary of the Interior in the Biden Administration. In this piece in High Country News, he wrote that 30 by 30 is only a waystation to 50 by 50 (and one wonders, 100 by 2100?).
That’s why I’ve introduced the Thirty by Thirty Resolution to Save Nature — a resolution to set a national goal of protecting 30% of our lands and waters by 2030, with half protected by mid-century. The resolution reflects the will of the scientific community, including and scientists like E.O. Wilson, who say that we need to protect half the planet to save the whole.
it would be interesting if we treated all scientific communities that way. For example, if epidemiologists say we need $3 billion to protect us from the next epidemic, we would need to do “their will.” Or fire scientists (or historic vegetation ecologists) say we need to burn 50% more acres. Seems like we would run out of money fairly quickly, and pols wouldn’t be able to prioritize based on “the will of scientists.” I guess they’d have to go back to the will of the constituents.
Resolutions seem to be like bills only perhaps less specific and more exhortatory. Here’s the resolution itself (many interesting elements) including:
Whereas the existing protections for land, the ocean, and wildlife in the United States are not sufficient to prevent a further decline of nature in the United States, with—
(1) only 12 percent of the land area in the United States permanently protected, mostly in Alaska and the West; and
(2) only 26 percent of Federal ocean territory permanently protected, the vast majority of which is in the remote western Pacific Ocean or northwestern Hawaii;
Note the introduction of “permanent” protections, perhaps this is a reason for the difference between the IUCN percentage in the map above. Or perhaps other definitions?
Where does the 12% come from and how did they define it? It’s the IUCN number, apparently and also it comes from a 2018 study by the Center for American Progress. They did a pretty good job of explaining how they came up with the numbers. Still, it seems to me that there is a lack of clarity around what’s in and out, and why, and particularly what I’ll call “chunkifying.” Here’s an example of “chunkifying”:
The United States is unique in that it is the only country of the three largest North American countries to show a net loss in overall protected area in any year. The Trump administration’s 2017 cuts in protections for the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments—which reduced their size by 50 percent and 85 percent, respectively—affected slightly less than 2 million acres of land and, as such, represents the largest reduction in protected areas in the nation’s history.
I guess the idea is that for the slightly less than 2 mill, it has changed from “nothing could happen except what the Monument allowed” to “some things could happen in some places”, e.g. mines where there is uranium, or wind turbines where there is wind. But does it make sense to write off the whole 2 mill because some things might happen? Critters don’t respond to intentions, just to physical changes on the landscape.
The Methods section of the 2018 CAP study is detailed with all the relevant datasets and caveats. I thought it was interesting that CAP added: “National Forests – National Forest System lands in the United States without wilderness or inventoried roadless area designations have also been omitted from the WDPA dataset.(reference 53) However, CAP felt that they merited inclusion given their land management plans, so those designations were added using the USGS PAD-US data.” My italics. Another “useful things plans do” to add to Jon’s list.
But why were NF’s out of the IUCN/WDPA maps in the first place? It appears because NF’s allow ski areas. On TSW we spend much time discussing the pros and cons of different uses allowed on NFs and BLM that people disagree about. It seems weird to me that ski areas would be singled out by the folks at IUCN. But they have to figure out all the countries, so I understand how hard that would be.. still, if their maps don’t do a very good job as measured against the real world, or their lines don’t really mean anything, it’s not that helpful. It’s also an example of chunkifying in the sense that NFs don’t count as a whole due to ski areas as a possible use (or that’s what the folks at IUCN were thinking).
But if the FS counts as protected, then why not BLM? And if BLM counts as protected, then there wasn’t really an increase in protected areas with Monumentizing nor a decrease with deMonumentizing.
It should be noted that National Parks, which are defined as protected areas by IUCN, including heavily used ones like the Great Smokies (dealing with overcrowding and resource damage as discussed in this recent news article) or Yosemite, or Yellowstone, are equally not chunkified.. so the acres around Old Faithful counts as protected.
So besides varying approaches to chunkification, these definitions seem to be vague about recreation impacts, and it’s hard to see that there’s not some tension between these goals and building out wind and solar infrastructure. Certainly in a resolution it’s easy to simply say “leaving land alone is therefore good for climate change” but it’s more complicated than that. If we were minimizing carbon and spatial footprints here, proponents would be nuclear advocates, and I’m not sure those groups are.
Here’s a link to the IUCN protected area categories, including national parks (note the emphasis on intention as opposed to physical realities). Perhaps of more interest is the IUCN category of protected area VI, which sounds like national forests.
Category VI: Protected area with sustainable use of natural resources
Protected areas that conserve ecosystems and habitats, together with associated cultural values and traditional natural resource management systems. They are generally large, with most of the area in a natural condition, where a proportion is under sustainable natural resource management and where low-level non-industrial use of natural resources compatible with nature conservation is seen as one of the main aims of the area.
. Note the language is “One of the main aims”, not “where other things are never allowed.” It seems to me that there is a latitude for interpretation.
