Thanks to a member of the journalism community for sharing this location of the Youtube link to this story..18 minutes in they start talking about the Forest Service. My pet peeve about this coverage is it seems to equate “women in the Forest Service” with “women in Fire”. They mention women from other agencies, but then go back to the Forest Service. Gosh, there are plenty of other things that the FS does besides fight fire. I wonder if the more “Fire Service-y” the FS gets, the more macho culture and relative absence of women will become the face of the FS? Also, as we’ve discussed here, there is a context with other organizations such as the military who have been dealing with the same problem. It’s interesting to think about how the coverage of “the worst agencies and military organizations for sexual harassment” would look like. How much variation is there among agencies who have the same “outdoor, macho, far from other people” kind of work? Trail crews also use chain saws and axes..
U.S. Forest Service chief under investigation after complaints of sexual misconduct- PBS story
The U.S. Forest Service has confirmed that the United States Department of Agriculture, its parent agency, has “engaged an independent investigator” to look into complaints against Chief Tony Tooke.
News of this investigation comes as the Forest Service is dealing with allegations of a broader culture of harassment and retaliation within its ranks, as detailed in an investigation published by the PBS NewsHour this week.
In the course of reporting its investigation, the PBS NewsHour discovered allegations of sexual misconduct against Tooke, specifically relationships with his subordinates, before he became chief.
In a statement, Forest Service press officer Babete Anderson said the investigation would “undertake a thorough review of [Tooke’s] conduct. We take very seriously the responsibility to promote a safe, respectful and rewarding work environment for all employees.”
When asked about the allegations, Tooke said in an email: “I’m in support of this investigation, and I have fully cooperated from the start. I expect to be held to the same standards as every other Forest Service employee.”
In an email to employees responding to the NewsHour’s original report, a spokesman from Tooke’s office said: “The stories the Forest Service employees shared during the PBS NewsHour piece are important to hear, difficult and heart-wrenching as they may be. Stories like these, which have come to light over the past few years, have underscored that there are elements of sexual harassment in the Forest Service that have existed and continue today.”
It continues: “While we have taken significant actions over the past several years to address sexual harassment in the Forest Service, we acknowledge that we have more work to do. These are critical issues that the Forest Service must continue to take on to increase our efforts to protect our fellow employees so they know they can speak up and speak out, without any fear of retaliation or reprisal. We continue to consult with outside experts and focus internal resources to help us better support victims of harassment during investigations. Victims must know that there will be accountability for persons who engage in sexual harassment and reprisal. We are committed to our duty to create a workplace that is respectful, rewarding, and above all, a safe place for all employees. The Forest Service is committed to permanently changing our culture to create the workplace we all deserve”
The statement, from Dan Jiron, acting deputy undersecretary for natural resources and the environment, did not mention Tooke.
(note, Dan Jiron is an FS employee and former Regional Forester for Region 2.) #whoneedspoliticalappointees?
Is a subdivision surrounded by national forest “reasonable?”
ANILCA provides: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, and subject to such terms and conditions as the Secretary of Agriculture may prescribe, the Secretary shall provide such access to nonfederally owned land within the boundaries of the National Forest System as the Secretary deems adequate to secure to the owner the reasonable use and enjoyment thereof: Provided, That such owner comply with the rules and regulations applicable to ingress and egress to or from the National Forest System.” 16 U.S.C. § 3210(a)
“The U.S. Forest Service is currently considering approval of a new two-lane paved road across public lands north of Edwards to facilitate development of Berlaimont Estates — 19 new mansions, 2,000 vertical feet above town. The sprawling subdivision would be developed on a parcel that is completely surrounded by National Forest.
Unlike other nearby neighborhoods (e.g., Wildridge and Mountain Star), public land managers must approve a new road across lands owned by you and me to facilitate this proposal. To approve the new road, the Forest Service must deem Berlaimont Estates a “reasonable” land use.”
How does the White River National Forest determine what is a reasonable use? Dose it matter what the surrounding use of the national forest is? Does it matter if it creates bigger WUI problems? When you buy a piece of land surrounded by public lands with no access is it reasonable to expect to build a subdivision?
These questions are intertwined (and sometimes conflated) with the question of whether the “regulations applicable to ingress and egress” (access) are reasonable. Should the Forest Service be able to say that the proposed “32-foot wide, bermed, walled, plowed and paved thoroughfare switchbacking thousands of feet up a very visible hillside,” where “the walls necessary to support this road could be more than 1,000 feet long and as tall as 40 feet” is not reasonable? The Forest Service has been upheld when it limits the kind of access to inholdings. And by the way, “The 2002 Forest Plan designated this area Deer and Elk Winter Range and restricted winter use to minimize disturbance.” It seems like a road with lots of use on it might be inconsistent with the forest plan.
It’s probably unfortunate that the local land use plan either allows a subdivision here or there isn’t any local planning. It is Forest Service policy to get involved with that process, in part to help it deal with these hard questions.
PBS Newshour: They reported sexual harassment. Then the U.S. Forest Service retaliation began
A must read from PBS NewsHour. Will U.S. Forest Service Chief Tony Tooke and President Donald Trump take these reports of sexual harassment and assault, bullying by U.S. Forest Service supervisors and crew members seriously?
Harassment of women in the Forest Service has been a problem for years. As far back as 1972, women have joined together to file class action complaints and lawsuits about gender discrimination and sexual harassment. More recently, in 2016, a congressional hearing was held to address the problem within the Forest Service’s California workforce, which had also been the focus of previous complaints. The PBS NewsHour investigated what’s happened since then, and found the problem goes much deeper.
In interviews with 34 current and former U.S. Forest Service women, spanning 13 states, the women described a workplace that remains hostile to female employees. They complained of a pattern of gender discrimination, bullying, sexual harassment and assault by crew members and supervisors. Three women said they were raped after-hours by co-workers or interagency firefighters while working for the Forest Service. Many women alleged retaliation after reporting these incidents….
Seven of the 34 women interviewed asked to remain anonymous for fear of further retaliation. Fear was a common theme in the interviews. One woman said she went to the hospital multiple times for “her nerves” after reporting harassment. Another asked the NewsHour to destroy her interview transcript, because she became too afraid of the consequences. A third, a firefighter who resigned from her position in 2016 after she reported to police that she was raped on assignment in Montana, said: “We all live in this fear … So if I have to speak up I will. But it’s frustrating because there’s so many more out there who are not talking.”
Read the entire article here.
Navigating Social Forestry II: Questions to Authors
Steve posted this link earlier. The study here is about two Nation Forests in Oregon, the Siuslaw and the Williamette, both of which apparently have vibrant “thinning plantations less than 80 years old” programs and an active forest industry. I’ve written to the author of the paper, who is willing to answer our questions about what they found.
Here are a couple of paragraphs that interested me..
“Based on this literature, the contemporary institutional regime surrounding federal forest management in the Pacific Northwest can be conceptualized along four main elements: 1) multiple, at times conflicting, layers of institutions from past eras that continue to influence decision making at the local level, including a series of institutional incentives and legacies that create enduring incentives to harvest commercially valuable timber; 2) a shift in funding from long-term forest management to short-term emergency management (principally fire suppression and fire risk reduction); 3) a large number of veto players and veto points that create a highly “vetocratic” system; and 4) an increasing importance of non-state actors at local to regional scales that help to fill in for missing capacity, funding, and legitimacy within the agency.”
It is clear that the social forestry regime implies a much-expanded role for non-Forest Service stakeholders: as conveners, as communicators, as deal-makers, and—for those performing a veto-player role—as regulators of the boundaries on management possibilities. The Forest Service is dependent upon these non-agency stakeholders (1) to not litigate management decisions, and (2) for access to financial resources and the capacity needed to reach restoration objectives. This dependence results in part from the agency’s funding structure, which continues to be tied to timber harvest, even though management objectives have diversified. Additional funding for the agency’s non-timber (and non-fire) objectives is generally tied to connections to collaborative, external partners, such as stewardship groups, other collaborative groups, or watershed councils. Beyond helping to identify pathways through the maze of various veto players, these relationships may also provide the personnel capacity needed to plan and implement projects. The current social forestry regime thus appears to be an example of network governance, making the USFS less autonomous than the agency famously described by Kaufman in 1960. Furthermore, it is an agency increasingly grappling with gaps in funding and capacity, further reinforcing its dependence upon networks of non-state actors. Street-level forest managers, thus, operate within a decision space constrained by both capacity and legitimacy, and frequently search for ways to fill these gaps while simultaneously meeting their statutory mandates and timber targets.
This study points to the need to think beyond the current manifestation of social forestry (largely centered on local-scale actors and concerns) to consider ways to address management needs over larger scales and longer time periods and inform local-scale decision-making. Issues such as climate change, associated patterns of fire and insect activity, and others will require governance processes beyond the local scale. Policy changes that eliminate or reduce the influence of timber targets, provide long-term funding for projects with both ecological and social merit, and engage veto players in collaborative learning and information-sharing would seem to hold promise in this regard. Given that many USFS units around the country have indeed moved to planning over longer time frames and larger spatial extents, the dynamics we observed on the Siuslaw and Willamette may be characteristic of a particular set of circumstances—in other words, their “equilibriums” may be more limited than those of forests with different sets of economic, ecological, and political variables.”
There is also a discussion of the lack of management for early seral species.
So far we have Jon’s question about “how does/did forest planning fit into this?” Here’s a question for current employees “wasn’t there an effort to combine timber with other BLI’s into a joint vegetation management BLI? How did that turn out? I have a question to the authors about whether they see these equilbria as necessarily leading to more local “control” over land management decisions. Please add the quotes you are interested in, and any questions to the authors, in the comments below.
Extinction on the national forests
Larry Harrell asked recently (with a *smirk* no doubt) if any species have gone extinct on national forests. Here’s a report (published in 2004) from the Center for Biological Diversity that documents 108 extinctions that occurred between the passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973 and 1995. Two are noted on national forests. One was a mussel on the Carson National Forest. Here’s the other:
The San Gabriel Mountains Blue butterfly (Plebejus saepiolus aureolus) was known only from a single wet meadow within the yellow pine forest near the Big Pines Ranger Station, San Gabriel Mountains, Angeles National Forest, California [14]. Its host plant was Trifolium wormskioldii. At a minimum it was seen in 1970, 1980, and 1985. It has not been seen since 1985 [14]. It was not found in a 1995 survey which was a very wet year that would have encouraged reproduction if the taxon still existed [97]. The meadow was still wet, but had been made smaller due to the diversion of some of the water from the natural spring feeding it. The diversion of the spring by the U.S. Forest Service has been suggested as the cause of the species extinction [189].
And it’s been another 20 years since then. Another species that seems obvious, but its extinction probably pre-dates this study is the ivory-billed woodpecker, which ranged throughout the southeastern forests, and was killed off by logging. The Ocala National Forest in Florida was established in 1908, but ivory bills had apparently disappeared from there by 1940. The last confirmed sighting was in 1944 in Louisiana. One of the unconfirmed sightings after that was on the DeSoto National Forest in Mississippi.
It would be good to see more like this:
One rare desert plant has been removed from the endangered species list, and another has been “down-listed,” thanks to successful recovery efforts in Death Valley National Park.
National forest planning has been a contributing factor to the delisting of grizzly bears in the Yellowstone ecosystem, and will be part of the consideration if Canada lynx are proposed for delisting.
Dueling Ladders of Inference: Are the Ds and the Rs ever again to find common ground?
Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts. …Salman Rushdie
Democratic operatives and pundits, the Ds, talk as if Republican power players attend to three things: God, Guns, and Gays. The Ds will sometimes expand the three to include Anti-environmentalism or what I have called a Republican war on Nature. What else?
Republican operatives and pundits, the Rs, talk as if Democrat power players attend to Socialism, Collectivism, Paganism, Atheism, Intellectualism, Secular Humanism. What else?
Meanwhile Rs talk about themselves in terms of family values, religious faith, individual freedom and exceptionalism, economics of free markets. What else?
Meanwhile the Ds talk about themselves in terms of community, consilience, connectedness to nature, critical inquiry, democratic traditions, economics of markets as part of political economy. What else?
I sometimes wonder whether these political power players can talk with one another. Have their “identities” and “narratives” become so divorced from one another as to make meaningful conversations unlikely or even impossible?
Notice that I implicitly introduced the notions of in-group and out-group above. I also introduced the idea of stereotyping. This will prove helpful because we are going to use both when we get into two books, The Trouble with Reality, and Demagoguery and Democracy. For now, though, let’s muddy the waters a bit by suggesting that the Rs and the Ds don’t even approach their party identity the same way. Consider, Republicans and Democrats Can’t Even Agree About How They Disagree (Washington Post, 9/7/2016)
… The Republican Party defines itself in ideological terms as the vehicle of symbolic conservatism. The Democratic Party, in contrast, is organized as a social group coalition. …
Republican leaders have a strong incentive to frame electoral choices in broad ideological terms: conservatism vs. liberalism; small government vs. big government; cultural traditionalism vs. social radicalism.
Democratic candidates, in contrast, prefer to emphasize disagreements over individual policies….
[P]olitical elites reinforce these distinct party identities when they communicate with the American public. Republican Party leaders encourage their voters to see the GOP as standing for a set of broad traditions and values. Democratic Party leaders push their voters to focus on the discrete interests of each social group within the Democratic coalition.
I suspect that both parties aren’t quite like depicted above. The Ds are probably more ideologically oriented and the Rs are more oriented around social groups. But both parties retain some of the identities identified by Grossmann and Hopkins. Muddied waters!
One way out of our current political mess would require that both the Rs and the Ds reflect on what they have become in terms of identities, narratives, speech (conceptual framing, rhetoric, propaganda, etc), and actively seek means to find common(er) ground upon which to deliberate and effect the work of Democratic Governance.
It seems to me, though, that neither the Ds nor the Rs have the interest or desire to try to learn from one another or to learn how to jointly craft law or policy. And there is no one to compel them to better behavior. Maybe they are just trapped in a socially-constructed quagmire that disallows them from speaking or acting differently. They act-out; shouting at one another, grandstanding, and playing muscle ball with each other, trying to gain favor for themselves and their party in a winner-take-all contest. The potential harms to our democratic traditions are large, including continued gridlock and impasse, but also opening the door for an authoritarian takeover. Whoa! (Liberals in-group bias warning: Robert Reich’s Fifteen Ways to Spot a Tyrant, Newsweek, 1/3/2017,
Bob Altemeyer’s life-work on Authoritarianism, Wikipedia)
But this story is not really about politicians. It is about us. We, the constituents who have the very same trouble. We, who pretend to be above the fray: “Surprise: we are in this together.” And we won’t get out of any of it unless we learn to change ourselves. Only then can we demand better behavior from our elected leaders. If any here believe that stereotypes are just rhetoric that politicians sling like arrows at one another, think again.
The Trouble with Reality
In The Trouble with Reality: A rumination on moral panic in our time (liberals in-group bias alert), 2017, Brooke Gladstone reminds us that we construct the reality we see, based on stereotypes:
… Our worldview is built on a bedrock of stereotypes, not just about people, but about the way things work. The power of those stereotypes—vital to survival in this unfathomable world—is as profound as it is inescapable.
Stereotypes, [Walter] Lippmann found focus and feed on what is familiar and what is exotic, exaggerating each in the process: “The slightly familiar is seen as very familiar and the somewhat strange as sharply alien.” They are refreshed continually, both by close observation and false analogy.
True or not, they carve neural pathways, sluices that stem the torrent of conflicting impressions and ideas churning through the umgebung [environment, surroundings, neighborhood].
In the end, stereotypes create the patterns that compose our world. It is not necessarily the world we would like it to be, he says, it is simply the kind of world we expect it to be. … (pp. 8-9)
Periodically, these stereotyped realities get smashed. A paradigm shift, is an example, when applied to professionals. Smashups are infrequent, and often repelled since we find them too threatening. Many (most?) people cling on to former belief systems or stereotypes, choosing to avoid the pain of threats to their umwelt, their self-centered “worldview.”
Those who do alter their worldview, only change it enough to allow them to move forward, retaining or clinging onto as much of their old worldview as possible. Seeking safety in the comfort zone.
Note: For any who may be disinclined to buy into the stereotype model, another way to frame this phenomenon is to use a construct developed by Chris Argyris called a “Ladder of Inference.” It is most often used a a part of problem solving in a double-loop learning system (pdf, or cartoon-video TED lesson).
Chris Argyris’ Ladder of Inference is represented by a series of steps, beginning at base with observable “data”and experiences, then ladder rungs: 1) selected “data” from personal observation, 2) added meanings ( personal and cultural), 3) assumptions made based on added meanings, 4) conclusions drawn, 5) beliefs adopted or altered about the world, 6) actions taken.
If we use Argyris’ Ladder only to stand on the top two steps and brow beat others with our own versions of reality and rightness and wrongness, and if others do the same, then we set a stage for demagoguery. If, on the other hand, we use the “Ladder” to reflect on our paths to discovery and to continually reassess our worldview, and to cross-compare with others on their life-journey, then we set a stage for civic discovery and effective public deliberation.
Whether we use the model of Stereotypes or the model of Ladders, in the worst case we get to the same end with Ds and Rs standing atop their separate Ladders of Inference, operating on pre-formed beliefs about the world and the perception of the world held by others, often leaping to conclusions or actions that would not happen if they were more reflective and open to change, and if they were to allow that prospect for others. Mostly they do not, setting the stage for ever-more intense conflict and ultimately even war. Is this where we stand today?
Are “we” better than our politicians? Mostly not, sorry to say. Just take a look at some of the trailing comments in this blog. Other discussion blogs get even nastier.
Demagoguery and Democracy
Standing high up on Ladders of Inference and lobbing projectiles at supposed rivals and adversaries is stage-setting labeled as “demagoguery” in Patricia Roberts-Miller’s book Demagoguery and Democracy. 2017. Since Roberts-Miller has a blog I’ll grab a definition of what demagoguery is and what it is not from there:
I’ve argued elsewhere that we’re in a culture of demagoguery, by which I mean that there are certain widely-shared premises about politics and public discourse:
- Every policy/political issue has a single right answer, and all other answers are wrong;
- That correct answer to any political question is obvious to people of good will and good judgment (that is, to good people);
- The in-group (us) is good;
- Therefore, anyone who disagrees with the in-group or tries to get a different policy passed isn’t just mistaken or coming from a different perspective or pointing out things it might be helpful for the in-group to know, but bad, and
- Deliberation and debate are unnecessary, and compromise is simply making a good policy less good.
- So, in a perfect world, all policy decisions would be made by the in-group or the person who best represents the in-group’s needs,
- And, therefore, the ideal political candidates are fanatically loyal to the in-group and will shut or shout down anyone who disagrees.
[By in-group, social psychologists don’t mean the group in power, but the social group of which one is a member. So, for some people, being a dog lover is an in-group, even (or especially) in the midst of a culture in which that identity is marginalized.]
This is not the conventional way of thinking about demagoguery—if you look at a dictionary, it will probably define demagoguery as speech by demagogues (in other words, it reduces the issue to one of identity—a demagogic move).
In common usage, demagoguery is often assumed to be obviously false speech that is completely emotional, untrue, and evidence-free on the part of bad people with bad motives.
That’s a useless definition for various reasons (including that it doesn’t even apply to many of the most notorious demagogues); it’s also actively harmful in that it impedes our ability to identify in-group demagoguery—that is, demagoguery on the part of people we like. And it does so because we can tell ourselves this isn’t demagoguery if:
- we think we are calm while reading the text, and the text (or rhetor) has a calm tone
- we believe the claims in the text are true
- the claims can be supported with evidence
- we believe the people making the argument are good people
- we believe they have good motives
One of the things I want to suggest in this talk is that teachers of writing are often unintentionally engaged in reaffirming the premises on which demagoguery operates, and we can do so in two general ways: first, by teaching criteria of “bad argumentation” (or demagoguery or propaganda or whatever devil term is in question) that don’t productively identify the problems of certain kinds of public discourse, thereby giving people a false sense of security—as in the above criteria. We can feel comfortable that we aren’t consuming or producing demagoguery when we are. Second, a lot of writing and especially argumentation textbook appeal to the rational/irrational split, assume a binary in epistemologies (so that one is either a naïve realist or relativist), require that students engage in motivism, and rely on a modernist formalism about what constitutes “good” writing.
For instance, if you look at the criteria for determining demagoguery, you can see the standards often advocated for a “good” argument.
If, as I’ll argue, that isn’t a helpful way to think about demagoguery, then the consequent way of teaching argumentation not only ends up reinforcing demagogic premises about public deliberation, but puts teachers in a really difficult place for talking productively about issues like bias and fairness.
So what might we do about our tendencies toward demagoguery? Roberts-Miller gives us hope but no simple answers. From Demagoguery and Democracy:
…First we can try to reduce the profitability of demagoguery by consuming less of it ourselves, and shaming media outlets that rely heavily on it. Second, we can choose not to argue with family or friends who are repeating demagogic talking points, and simply give witness to the benefits of pluralism and diversity [without condoning naive relativism’s anything goes]. Or third, if it seems interesting and worthwhile, we can argue with family or friends who are repeating demagogic talking points. Fourth, we can also support and argue for democratic deliberation.” … (p.94)
… Earlier I mentioned concepts particularly helpful for democratic deliberation: inclusion, fairness, responsibility, self-skepticism, and the “states.” Those can be turned into four basic principles.
First, because demagoguery depends on us and them being treated differently, simply insisting on fairness can go a long way toward u undermining demagoguery. Rhetorical fairness means that, whatever the argument rules are, they apply equally to everyone in the argument. … Second, Fairness, connects to responsibility is that the responsibilities of argumentation should apply equally across all interlocutors, so that all parties are responsible for representing one another’s arguments fairly, and striving to provide internally consistent evidence to support their claims. Third, the people arguing should strive to be internally concocting in terms of appeals to premises, definitions, and standards. … Finally, the issue is actually up for argument—that is, the people involved are making claims that can be proven wrong, and that they can imagine abandoning, modifying, and reconsidering. … (Pp.124-126)
Roberts-Miller concludes Demagoguery and Democracy:
Good disagreements are the bedrock of communities. Good disagreements happen when people with different kinds of expertise and points of view talk and listen to one another, and when we try, honestly and pragmatically, to determine the best course of action for the whole community. Our differences make us stronger. Democracy presumes that we can behave as one community, caring together for our common life, and disagreeing productively and honestly with one another. Demagoguery rejects that pragmatic acceptance and even valuing of disagreement in favor of a world of certainty, purity, and silence of dissent.
Demagoguery is about saying we are never wrong; they are. If we make a mistake, they are to blame; we are always in touch with what is true and right. There is no such thing as a complicated problem; there are just people trying to complicate things. Even listening to them is a kind of betrayal. All we need to do is what we all know to be the right thing. And it’s very, very pleasurable. It tells us we’re good and they’re bad, that we were right all along, and that we don’t need to think about things carefully or admit we’re uncertain. It provides clarity.Democracy is about disagreement, uncertainty, complexity, and making mistakes. It’s about having to listen to arguments you think are obviously completely wrong; it’s about being angry with other people, and their being angry with you. It’s about it all taking much longer to get something passed than you think reasonable, and taking a long time resisting some policy you think is dipshit. Democracy is about having to listen, and compromise, and it’s about being wrong (and admitting it). It’s about guessing—because the world is complicated….
Democracy is hard; Demagoguery is easy. … (pp. 127-129)
What, if anything, ought we to do? If we and others do nothing might we be headed for a social, cultural,economic, political catastrophe? Or am I just being overly concerned about something that is “fake news” or just a passing phase? Finally, what does any of this have to do with forest policy?
Getting recreational shooting off of national forests
That’s at least part of the solution in the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest’s proposal to amend its forest plan to provide “new rules to govern recreational shooting on national forest land.” The effort is being managed by the Northern Front Range Recreational Sport Shooting Management Partnership, a collaborative effort started in 2013 that also includes Colorado Parks and Wildlife and four counties.
The purpose, from the partnership website:
to develop possible management strategies for this activity on the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests. This includes not only identifying areas of the Forests that may or may not be suitable for recreational sport shooting, but also identifying locations that would be conducive to building developed shooting ranges open to the public on public lands.
Proposed closures would not apply to lawful hunting activities on National Forest System lands. In addition, proposed closures would likely not take effect until developed shooting ranges were constructed in the vicinity.
The forest supervisor said the partnership’s approach to the safety concerns is to have the counties build shooting ranges to give people more controlled places to shoot, in exchange for closures of Forest Service land. One of the alternatives being considered is 100% closure of national forest lands. One member of the public opined that it must be a joke, but I think it’s fair to consider whether recreational shooting is compatible with other uses of a national forest. At least outside of areas designated for that use (and maybe areas designated for that use should be under a special use permit like other exclusive uses).
Previously discussed on this blog here.
Wyoming Public Lands Initiative and the Bridger-Teton National Forest
“In early 2016 the Wyoming County Commissioners Association (WCCA) organized the Wyoming Public Lands Initiative (WPLI). The WPLI is a collaborative, county-led process intended to designate WSAs as wilderness, multiple use, or other management. The result will be one state-wide legislative lands package that is broadly supported by public lands stakeholders in Wyoming.”
It always makes me a little nervous when a local “collaborative” (or local government) feels empowered to dictate federal land policies (especially where, as in this case, there is a county plan that purports to “guide … the management of public lands” – implicitly federal lands). On the other hand, it’s always helpful to land managers if those with opposing views can work out and recommend something they all agree on. With wilderness designation decisions there is the added layer of Congress having to take a national look before approving a decision. In this case there are also national conservation groups represented in the collaborative, as well as local ones. But there is also a lawsuit by other conservation groups, and apparently someone on the other side ran to the local Congresswoman who is meddling, so the county commissioners are asking for a “time-out.” Here’s the latest.
NEPA Challenge: Meaningful Participation Required, Says 6th Circuit
This E&E News article sounds like it could apply to USFS and BLM cases. I’m not sure if it sets precedent or not. The 6th Circuit’s decision is here.
Court dismisses NEPA challenge to Mich. trail
Amanda Reilly, E&E News reporter
Published: Friday, February 23, 2018
Citizens who don’t meaningfully participate at the planning stage of a federal action forfeit their ability to later challenge the environmental review of that action, a federal court ruled today.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed claims by a group of local residents challenging the National Park Service’s review of a scenic trail through Michigan’s Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
The plaintiffs can’t bring their claims because they didn’t raise their objections when NPS issued a revised plan for the trail, Judge John Rogers wrote for the court.
….