Arizona received nearly $40 million in federal payments in fiscal 2018 to offset the Copper State’s more than 28 million acres of non-taxable public lands — but for critics like state Rep. Mark Finchem (R), that isn’t nearly enough.
Instead, Finchem is leading a push to establish a new state Department of Public Land Management that would become the first collection point for fees from all land-use agreements such as grazing fees and rights-of-way grants.
“This is one solution to see to it that PILT [payments in lieu of taxes] is reset so the state of Arizona might take its portion — depending on the agreement that’s negotiated with the Department of the Interior — and then send whatever the residual is on to the secretary of the Interior,” Finchem, chairman of the state House Federal Relations Committee, explained at a hearing on his bill, H.B. 2547, earlier this month.”
Thanks to everyone for these discussions. I would like to circle back to where I started. Until this started in Montana (?, I don’t know about what is happening with forest plans elsewhere), my view of how things were working was pretty much how Jim Furnish looked at it in his comment earlier. People recommend areas for Wilderness usually that don’t have current uses not allowed in Wilderness, or the bill encompasses existing uses, so no “kicking people out.” According to this thought process, every likely area is probably already in an IRA, so is more or less protected. We can discuss why IRA’s aren’t good enough, since there are generally no timber sales or roads within one under the 2001, Colorado, or Idaho Roadless Rules.
Some people say, the problem is that they aren’t permanent. As a person who worked on Colorado Roadless through D and R administrations at the State and the Feds, my view is that politically, they might as well be. In the same way that I think the Bikes in Wilderness dog won’t hunt, I don’t think that there is a real chance of that happening. Politicians just don’t care enough to spend the political capital when they are facing Big Environment’s lawsuits, potentially forever, over a situation that they have pretty much adapted to since 2001.
So I was surprised when I found out that at least in Montana, people are being “kicked out” of areas they are already using to make more Wilderness.. not only when the Wilderness is created, but in recommended Wilderness developed via forest plans. When I worked on Colorado Roadless we had a bit of the same thing. We had an effort to remove acres that did not fit the Roadless criteria and replace them with other areas that did (actually adding more total acres). The State Department of Wildlife collaborated on the acreage identification effort. They wanted to put in acres to CRAs that had had timber sales, at the same time saying that timber sales should not be allowed in CRAs. It doesn’t take a well-funded NGO to have some kind of internal target of “more acres=better,” these were State employees with that worldview.
If we call this kind of logic (as we see, not only held by Wilderness advocates) “re-wilding”, then the question is “where does it stop?”. It becomes a very different playing field than what I perceive (and I could definitely be wrong about this) is the case with Wilderness bills (at least in Colorado). Here we seem to work out the deals with the different groups, counties and so on, prior to introducing the bill. From this distance, it seems as if everyone needs to be on board before Congressionals spend the horsepower.
Right now I am thinking that having battles over recommended Wilderness in forest plans involves the same groups, and only protracts the battles that rightly should be fought, and deals made, at the political level. Does deeper analysis really help? Or is it about corralling groups in a room until they agree? Is this ultimately a political decision (yes) and is having a pre-controversy helping or hurting? Double the hassle for everyone, zillions of comments to be read, and definitely not double the fun. Yes, I realize it’s required, but things have changed since 1976, including many acres added to Wilderness.
A newspaper ad that Wilderness advocates ran in the Bozeman Chronicle in Montana recently. (Sorry, it’s a funky size and this was the best it could be reproduced here).
The following piece, which ran today in the Montana Standard, seems like a timely post based on recent debates and discussions on this blog. The authors of the following piece are listed at the bottom. – mk
The Gallatin Forest Partnership represents a failure of its members to recognize the crucial importance of the Gallatin Range for the future of Montana’s precious wildlife populations, and a willingness to gamble away this resource by promoting development in prime wildlife habitat.
The starting point for any discussion of the Gallatin Range should be this: the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is universally recognized as the best intact ecosystem in the lower 48, and is considered to be the best functioning temperate ecosystem in the world – with the full complement of wildlife that was here in pre-Columbian times. There is no other place in the lower 48 that has such an intact, wildlife-rich ecosystem, and we shouldn’t gamble with its future! Gallatin Forest Partnership is proposing mechanized recreation (mountain bikes, motorcycles, ATVs) in the best wildlife habitat in the lower 48!
The Gallatin Range provides a migration corridor that connects the abundant wildlife of Yellowstone National Park with the Bangtail/Bridger ranges, northward to the Big Belts, and finally to the wildlife-rich Northern Continental Divide ecosystem, allowing crucial genetic mixing among wildlife populations.
The gaping flaw in GFP’s proposal is its willingness to sacrifice the Porcupine/Buffalo Horn area, immediately north of the Yellowstone boundary. This is an area of low relief, low elevation wildlands that is the best wildlife habitat north of the park. It’s the go-to place for wildlife migrating out of northern Yellowstone during harsh winters. It is home to grizzlies, wolverines (only 300 remaining in the lower 48), and an elk-calving area in the spring. We advocate that Porcupine/Buffalo Horn be designated as Wilderness — the gold standard of protection — because of its importance to wildlife. Recognizing the its quality habitat, Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks manages ten sections of land there, with strong habitat-protecting restrictions.
Six of the thirteen members of the GFP are mountain biking advocacy groups, but no wildlife advocacy groups were invited as participants. Many of us ride mountain bikes, but we don’t agree that the best wildlife habitat in the Gallatin Range should be promoted as a mountain biking playground at the expense of wildlife. Studies show that mountain bikes significantly disturb and stress wildlife, almost as much as motorized vehicles. It’s especially disturbing that The Wilderness Society, Montana Wilderness Association, and Greater Yellowstone Coalition are throwing their full weight behind the GFP when we would expect these conservation groups to, first and foremost, protect wildlife habitat. With climate change and explosive growth, Montana’s wildlife will encounter challenges whose magnitude is difficult to anticipate, therefore – to ensure future security for wildlife- we must manage our remaining wild places prudently and conservatively, with permanent protection through Wilderness designation.
Included among the GFP’s mountain biking members are groups that are affiliated with the International Mountain Biking Association (IMBA), an industry-sponsored trade group whose funders profit from the sale of mountain bikes. Disturbingly, IMBA promotes redrawing wilderness boundaries to allow mountain biking, it opposes any new wilderness designation that disallows bikes, and it supports widespread use of electric-powered mountain bikes (e-bikes). The exploding popularity of e-bikes has the potential to massively disturb wildlife, resulting in more bikers, traveling at faster speeds, and penetrating deeper into remote wildlife habitats.
A perfect example of the shortcomings of the GFP plan can be found in the quality wildlife habitat of the northern Elkhorn Mountains, south of Helena. This area is a Forest Service designated Wildlife Management Area, identical to the designation that GFP proposes for the PBH. Over the last several years, rogue mountain bikers have created a vast network of unauthorized, illegal trails, in many cases using existing game trails, alarming local wildlife advocates and hunters who recognize that designation as a “wildlife management area” has proven ineffective for protecting wildlife. The Forest Service does not have a budget for enforcement. There is no basis for believing that management would be any better in the Gallatin National Forest, to the detriment of wildlife.
It’s increasingly clear that the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Montana Wilderness Association, and Wilderness Society are not making the decisions we would expect them to make to protect Montana’s treasured wildlife.
As the Forest Service releases its new Management Plan, we urge support for Alternative D, which provides maximum wilderness protection for 230,000 acres in our world-class wildlife habitat in the Gallatin Range.
Nancy Schultz and Joe Gutkoski are Gallatin Wildlife Association members. Glenn Monahan and George Wuerthner are Western Watersheds Project members. Nancy Ostlie is volunteer leader of Great Old Broads for Wilderness. Howie Wolkie and Phil Knight are with Montanans for Gallatin Wilderness.
From the 2015 Flathead National Forest NVUM Report. This shows perceptions of crowding by visitors in different forest areas.
Many thanks to everyone who commented on Monday’s post! You were full of information and (mostly) civil. I’ll build on some of the ideas from Monday in this post.
George Wuerthner said here “Wilderness is not about recreation. Therefore, if you are concerned about protecting wildlands and wildlife, you would support wilderness designation.” Others have commented on this.
There seems to be some disagreement about the relation of recreation to Wilderness. I wrote about this in an essay for the book “193 Million Acres: Toward a Healthier and More Resilient Forest Service” published by the Society of American Foresters and edited by our own Steve Wilent (and with essays by other Smokey Wire contributors). Since my essay was written, The Wilderness Society has changed its website to remove the “Why Wilderness” page I quoted from below.
Here’s what I said in the essay:
“On its “Why Wilderness? web page, the Wilderness Society (TWS) states that “Wilderness is a haven from the pressures of our fast-paced society. It provides us with places where we can seek relief from the noise, haste and crowds that too often confine us. It is a place for us to enjoy with friends and families — strengthening our relationships and building lasting memories.”
However, NVUM numbers show that only .05 of national forest visits are in wilderness. And later, on the same webpage, TWS notes that: “Wild places are a great source of economic activity, especially in the rural communities that surround them. Outdoor recreation contributes more than $646 billion annually to the economy, supports 6.1 million jobs, and generates nearly $80 billion in federal, state, and local taxes.”
As part of its advocacy for increasing wilderness, TWS equates “wild areas,” where most people recreate, with legislated Wilderness. Since mountain bikes are not allowed in Wilderness, a push for more Wilderness necessarily reduces the diversity of recreation opportunities. As John Fisch comments in “Do Bikes Belong in Wilderness Areas?” in the December 20, 2017, edition of Sierra, the national magazine of the Sierra Club: “…bikes don’t belong in the backcountry… and all backcountry must become designated Wilderness. Ergo, the ultimate goal results in mountain bikes losing all backcountry access….”
It may be that increasing the numbers of acres in legislatively-designated wilderness areas and increasing access for the kinds of recreation that most visitors prefer (in NVUM data) are ultimately on a collision course.”
A couple more thoughts. Many of those “recreation benefits” studies usually include all outdoor recreation, including skateboards, soccer balls, RV’s and OHV’s, so it’s difficult to argue for more Wilderness based on those benefits (if people are paying close attention). Wisely, TWS has removed that. Are people in or out of Wilderness? Or only some people? Do we generally want to attract people to Wilderness, or try to keep them away, as George says, above. Perhaps it’s really the outdoor industry, not just MBers, and some Wilderness advocates that may come to a parting of the ways..
And if the idea is to keep people out, then the Som Sai proposes here, for Extreme Wilderness makes a lot of sense. Let’s just convert all the current Wildernesses to Extreme (except where their Congressional designations allow grazing, motorboats, etc.).
As to solitude, let’s look at the graphs for the Flathead on the 2015 NVUM above. The NVUM has a great deal of information and is easy to access, including gender, socioeconomic status, distance traveled and so on. I have heard criticism of these data, and this might be a good time to bring this up, since MBers are paying attention and some of the critiques were from that community. Nevertheless kudos to the Forest Service for doing this! I wish other information were as easy to access! Folks are encouraged to look at the NVUMs from their neighboring forests and share observations. Here is the link.
First of all, let me restate that I think that we don’t need mountain bikes in Wilderness. As others have said here, IMHO it’s not a battle worth fighting, nor one that is likely to be won in court. I would propose a Wilderness Timeout for sides to reorganize. Rather than arguing about what should go on in Wilderness, we should take another look at the idea of Wilderness, Roadless, and Backcountry and make up a new designation (or use an old one that fits)- because it seems to me that what we are really talking about is the need to realign based on our own needs and interests.
For those purposes, we all have to admit that mountain bikers are not part of the Wilderness deal. So why should mountain bikers support land designations from which they are excluded? If bikes were never there, I could easily see that. But we have crossed a line recently, in that areas are being recommended for Wilderness such that biking will not be allowed where it already is going on. If Wilderness advocates really believe that bikes are more environmentally destructive, then building trails for them elsewhere will potentially be equally environmentally destructive elsewhere. And there is the whole question of trust- if bikers do a deal with Wilderness advocates (Wa’s)- will Wa’s support the new trails financially? Or will at some future date, the area with the new trails will also be on the list to be designated? Is there ever an end to the “need” for more Wilderness? Can you imagine Wilderness Watch (just picking a name, I don’t know all the groups) saying “OK, we’re done, there are now x million acres, distributed throughout the US, we’re now going to work on removing OHVs from Roadless Areas, or on to some other target. ” And have the large heavily funded groups such as Sierra Club and TWS staked out positions on this (where do bikes fit in what we are advocating?).
Mountain bikers may be entering the time (perhaps calling for a Wilderness Timeout while they think about it) in which their interests diverge from other Wilderness advocates. I can understand that that would be frustrating, and bikers may be offended by feeling that you are now not quite as OK in terms of environmental purity as you were when you were on the same team. And I know that there are far smarter people than I in the Wilderness advocate world who have done the math, and think that it’s worth it to pursue more Wilderness and remove you (a strong network of possible supporters) from it.
Again my problem is not with Wilderness, but rather, if there were another land designation, say Wilderness Lite, that includes mountain bikers, why not switch to “Wilderness is fine, but where mountain bikers exist, it’s OK to have Wilderness Lite” which has chain saws and mountain bikes, but not OHV’s (perhaps), and otherwise strictly recreation. I think there is grazing in some Wildernesses so that might be OK. Like I said, I know someone, somewhere seems to have made that calculation, and decided to stick to advocating for more “pure” Wilderness, but I am not really clear why. I am interested in understanding why someone would want Wilderness rather than Wilderness Lite in those situations.
The hockey star is known for saying you have to “skate to where the puck will be.” That seems to be what the Forest Service is trying to do by putting thinning treatments where fire risk is high, but research again suggests that the hockey analogy doesn’t work in forests. Maybe it’s because the “field of play” is so much larger and the entity delivering the puck isn’t on your team (and doesn’t play by any rules). This article plays off of the recent executive order to treat 8.45 million acres of land and cut 4.4 million board feet of timber, “which is about 80 percent more than was cut on U.S. Forest Service lands in 2017.”
“The Hazardous Fuels Reduction Program received a lot of financial investment and resources over the past 15 years,” Barnett told the Missoulian. “We treat quite a lot of landscapes each year. And less than 10 percent of that had even (been) burned by a subsequent fire. So that raises more broad general questions over the efficacy of fuel treatments to change regional fire patterns.”
“Even if federal land management agencies were able to increase their treatments and meet the President’s goal of treating 8.45 million acres, it would still equate to less than 2 percent of all federal lands,” Pohl said. “It is unlikely these locations will be among the hundreds of millions of acres that burn during the effective lifespan of a fuel reduction treatment, typically 10-20 years.”
And if the goal is protecting homes rather than changing regional fire patterns,
“Research shows that home loss is primarily determined by two factors: the vegetation in the immediate area around the home, and the way the home is designed and constructed,”
You could read this to say that if they treated 2% a year for 10-20 years, there would be a higher encounter rate than historically that might be a better justification, but it doesn’t sound like that is the way they are interpreting it. The map does suggest that southern California and a couple of other places might be looked at differently, and considered a priority for funding.
The author went off script a bit to say that logging is a good strategy to “improve forest health,” but maybe that’s the semantic problem of “logging” vs “thinning.” I’m also wondering if an order to produce board feet doesn’t tend to favor logging (of bigger trees) over thinning?
When I read this, I wondered why the OIG was publishing a report in Feb. 2019 about cases from FY 2014-2017. (I think FY 2017 ended on Sept. 30 2017?). I thought the major new efforts to combat harassment were started around when Chief Christiansen came on board in October 2018. Wouldn’t a useful audit answer the question “how are these new approaches to solving the problem working? Again, if anyone can explain why OIG is studying this far in the past, I’d appreciate it. Here’s the link.
Democratic lawmakers in the House today demanded a meeting with Forest Service and Agriculture Department officials to discuss an agency watchdog’s report that outlined shortcomings in the service’s response to sexual harassment complaints.
In some cases, former supervisors in the Pacific Southwest Region didn’t report employees’ prior records of sexual harassment to hiring officials, allowing those employees to be selected for supervisory positions in other locations, USDA’s Office of the Inspector General said in a Monday report.
In other cases, management officials didn’t report incidents of sexual harassment within the 24 hours required by the agency and weren’t disciplined for failing to meet the requirement, the OIG said.
“Given the number of complaints of harassment and retaliation we continue to receive from current and former Forest Service employees, we are deeply concerned about the Forest Service’s commitment to addressing these failures,” Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) said in a news release.
“This is an urgent matter and a top priority for us this Congress. We will ask the Inspector General and the Forest Service to brief us on these new findings,” they said in a statement. “We will also ask the Inspector General to review the entire agency’s processes for addressing sexual harassment and misconduct.”
Grijalva is chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. Cummings is chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Speier chairs the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel.
The OIG reported that its investigators reviewed 11 substantiated cases in the Pacific Southwest Region from fiscal 2013 to 2017 and found two, and likely a third, situations in which former supervisors did not inform Forest Service hiring officials about employees’ prior histories.
Forest Service staffers have been reluctant to share information on employees due to privacy concerns, the OIG said. But the watchdog agency suggested policy changes. A Forest Service manager told the OIG that supervisors could glean more information through the questions they ask employees applying for jobs, an approach the OIG agreed with, according to the report.
The details of such questioning, however, remain to be determined. The Forest Service said it has concerns about the legal boundaries for questions about past conduct and would consult with the USDA Office of the General Counsel.
The report said the Forest Service “should provide additional training and guidance regarding all supervisors’ responsibility to provide accurate and reliable information during reference checks. Asking more specifically about current or former employees’ prior history regarding serious misconduct provides greater assurance that the supervisor providing the reference will be more forthcoming about this kind of information.”
Investigators also reviewed 125 complaints of sexual harassment from 2014 to 2017 and found that 18 weren’t reported by managers or supervisors within the 24 hours required. In 13 of those cases, no action was taken against managers or supervisors who didn’t meet the requirement, the OIG said.
“This occurred because FS supervisors and managers did not appear to fully understand the 24-hour reporting requirement, and FS lacked specific guidelines on disciplinary actions to take when addressing untimely reporting,” the report said.
In other cases, the report added, employees found to have engaged in harassment were subjected to penalties less severe than outlined in agency guidance, without documented justification.
The Forest Service generally agreed with the OIG’s findings and said it would complete new, related training for hiring managers by June 1.
I find the objection process under the 2012 Planning Rule to be quite interesting. Some folks say that it’s turned out like “another comment period.” The idea was (which was also incorporated in the 2005 Rule) was that people would focus on specific concrete things in the plan, and not so much “you violated ESA” or “you did not consider the full range of alternatives.”
I’ve looked at some of the objection letters for the Colville National Forest Plan and found a number of interesting ones. Today I’d like to focus on this section of one on recommended Wilderness, part of a 20 page letter by the Northeast Washington Forest Coalition.
RWAs should be managed as wilderness. Pg 150 of LRMP – MA-STD-RW-02: allows mountain bikes & chainsaws in recommended wilderness. This management is inconsistent with recommended wilderness standards on other National Forests. Current levels of existing activities (such as mountain biking and use of chainsaws) will continue to occur until Congress moves to designate these areas as wilderness.
The 2006 USFS Handbook provides that “[a]ny inventoried roadless area recommended for wilderness … is not available for any use that may reduce the wilderness potential of an area. Activities currently permitted may continue, pending designation, if the activities do not compromise wilderness values of the area.” (2006 USFS Manual § 1923.03(1)).
However, the existing use of chainsaws, mountain bikes, and other mechanized vehicles is impacting the wilderness potential, including impacts on soils, wildlife, and aesthetics. Standards and guidelines are at the heart of a forest plan and serve as the basis for future decisions. Maintaining wilderness values is a responsibility the agency has under the Wilderness Act and is not discretionary.
I’ve always found some Wilderness discussions confusing, as they are part preservation of historic landscapes and uses (kind of a historic park idea) and sometimes protecting nature from humans, and sometimes touted as sources of recreation economic spending (obviously assuming that there is lots of human use). Sometimes the distinctions feel more ideological than other land designations, which are simply “you can do this and you can’t do that.”
What I don’t get about the chainsaw and mountain bikes, is that if those two things are bad for wilderness values, then if they are going on now, should the area not be recommended wilderness because these values have already impacted the wilderness potential?
I guess it’s just confusing to me that areas can become recommended for Wilderness with these ongoing activities, but the same activities between time t=(when recommended) to t=(when designated) would have such an impact that the potential would be reduced. I could even see putting a cap on chainsawed stumps per year, but how many chainsawed stumps would it take to “reduce wilderness potential?”
I disagree FWIW that the use of chainsaws has impacts on soils, wildlife and aesthetics. It seems to me that if you have a chainsaw going you get done quicker, get out of the area and leave the wildlife alone for a greater period of time. If aesthetics, couldn’t a chainsaw have a “handsaw emulation attachment”?
Maybe someone can help me understand these distinctions between actions which occur pre Recommended, and Recommended to Designated?
This is probably just another run-of-the-mill people management issue that taxes the limited recreation management resources of the Forest Service; here’s what happens when natural places get so popular they attract people who are not there to enjoy the nature part. The ban would be about “safety and environmental issues on our National Wild and Scenic Rivers,” and maybe there are some wild and scenic rivers act requirements at the bottom of this (the forest supervisor spent some time at OGC). (But it’s mostly interesting to me because I’ve been on these rivers, long ago).
he Senate on Tuesday passed the most sweeping conservation legislation in a decade, protecting millions of acres of land and hundreds of miles of wild rivers across the country and establishing four new national monuments honoring heroes from Civil War soldiers to a civil rights icon.
The 662-page measure, which passed 92 to 8, represented an old-fashioned approach to dealmaking that has largely disappeared on Capitol Hill. Senators from across the ideological spectrum celebrated home-state gains and congratulated each other for bridging the partisan divide.
“It touches every state, features the input of a wide coalition of our colleagues, and has earned the support of a broad, diverse coalition of many advocates for public lands, economic development, and conservation,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, (R-Ky).
Perhaps the most significant change the legislation would make is permanently authorizing a federal program that funnels offshore drilling revenue to conserve everything from major national parks and wildlife preserves to local baseball diamonds and basketball courts. Authorization for the popular program, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), lapsed months ago due to the partial government shutdown and other disputes. Liberals like the fact that the money allows agencies to set aside land for wildlife habitat. Conservatives like the fact that taxpayers don’t have to foot the bill for it.
Congress is now set to reauthorize the fund in perpetuity, though it will not make its spending mandatory. Congressional funding for the program has “fluctuated widely” since its inception in 1965, according to a 2018 Congressional Research Service report. Less than half of the $40 billion that has piled up in the fund during its five decades of existence has been spent by Congress on conservation efforts.
And Utahns supporting wilderness..
As outlined his opposition in the Deseret News a day after Utah’s junior senator, Mitt Romney (R), defended the package in the same paper. “We can conserve wildlife, protect historic sites, maintain access and preserve Utah’s public lands in a way that reflects the priorities of rural Utahns,” Romney wrote. “This is the future our public lands need and deserve.”
In an interview, Heinrich noted that Republican and Democratic supporters of the bill stuck together to defeat hostile amendments such as Lee’s, which could have unraveled the deal.
“That’s something you used to see all the time,” he said. “That’s been much more rare in recent years.”
The package designates several other protected areas in Utah, including the 850-acre Jurassic National Monument and the much more vast San Rafael Swell Recreation Area. Scott Groene, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance executive director, said the wilderness designations will keep motorized vehicle use at bay in Desolation and Labyrinth Canyons, part of the dramatic red rock landscape that defines the state.
“Spectacular canyons will remain quiet places,” Groene said.
Maybe Congress working together based on mutual interests (and listening to the voices of those affected), and major bipartisan lifting to get a bill out the door, will become more frequent. One can only hope.
