Discussion: Leadership Impact on Forest Service Operations: Intriguing Ideas from Public Administration Theories

by

Cabinet_ranger

Here’s a link to a discussion piece by Cindy Chojnacky titled: Leadership Impact on Forest Service Operations: Intriguing Ideas from Public Administration Theories. This article has raised much interest in FS circles, and some have suggested that this would be a good place for a discussion.

It is from the Journal of Forestry current edition, so SAF member have a hardcopy in their mailbox or house somewhere. The Journal will be printing some responses, so if you are interested in doing that also, here are the requirements. Here is what it says in the Journal about that:

The author, Cindy Chojnacky, may drop in the discussion, but hasn’t made a commitment to do so..so please keep that in mind when we are discussing.

The Journal of Forestry invites readers to submit a response of no more than 1,000 words that reflects on the preceding discussion. Responses need not necessarily be critiques of the ideas presented in the discussion, but may expand upon elements that were not included and should be considered. Responses must be professional and courteous.

All responses will be considered for publication in a future issue. Send responses to [email protected] or Editor, Journal of Forestry, 5400 Grosvenor Lane, Bethesda, MD 20814-2198.

Let the discussion begin!

Thinking About Natural Resources and the West: I

by

DSCN0002_01

On my Solstice trip, I drove from Colorado to Sacramento, California. Driving from Colorado, (where marijuana is legal) to Utah (where alcohol is heavily regulated) to Nevada (where gaming is legal) to California (where there are many, many people compared to the other states) is a lesson on “more or less the same biota, but strong sociopolitical differences.”

At the same time, I was listening to “The Killing of Crazy Horse” on CDs. I recommend this story, especially to those who frequent Wyoming, Nebraska and South Dakota. Weaving together my departure from Golden, Colorado to a point west of Placerville, California, hearing about the gold rush in the Black Hills (people were responding to a depression at the time) , touched home with the story of the west as a story of using our natural resources. Mining, water, agriculture, wood, fish, wildlife. You can stand on a peak in Colorado’s Rockies and see evidence of mining and water engineering almost anywhere you look (as in the above photo by me).

Some might say “exploiting” but according to Merriam-Webster there are two definitions:

1. to make productive use of : utilize
2. to make use of meanly or unfairly for one’s own advantage

I am not sure that #2 has meaning in terms of gold or other resource development, but utilizing resources seems like a good thing. Or at least it did in those days, and I wonder why we are not as enthused about it today. It seems like there are two fundamental trains of thought nowadays.

1. We need to use natural resources and we should be careful of the environment and make sure we protect it while extracting and using those resources. We are lucky to live in a country with so many, because we can develop them in an environmentally sensitive manner, create jobs that contribute to our communities, and trade products with other countries who want what we have, for things we want from them.

Now I’m not saying that everyone agrees on the details of “protecting the environment”; I participated in discussions vis a vis the Forest Stewardship Council certification standards, so I have some clue about how much debate there can be. However, the principle is that you can cut trees, graze cattle, pump out oil and gas, and be environmentally friendly.

2. We should not use those natural resources because of environmental impacts in our country. Since people do use resources, this really means that people will either use different resources, or the same ones (say wood, or gold or molybdenum, or oil) from elsewhere.

My hypothesis is that public research funds are used to study environmental impacts of different practices, but not so much to improve practices. It would be interesting to take a use, say, grazing, or oil and gas development, and look at 1) who’s doing what research and 2) who’s funding it, and 3) how much is targeted to improving practices, rather than saying “impacts are bad, so you should stop doing it.”

This kind of research does happen, though, and maybe should be highlighted more in the press (?). However, “practices can be improved” doesn’t have the drama of “practices will destroy the environment.”

I did run across this interesting roundup of new technologies for oil and gas development in Andy Revkin’s Dot Earth blog.

Happy 125th Birthday Aldo Leopold: Keep the Green Fire Burning

by

Aldo-relaxing_colorToday, January 11, 2013, marks the 125th birthday of conservationists, author, teacher and hero Aldo Leopold.

Growing up in a nature-loving family in a rural Wisconsin village, Leopold’s writings and conservation ethic have always held a special place in my heart.  Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac ranks high on my list of books that most influenced me, and certainly I’m hardly alone in that respect.

Over the past few summers, we’ve been spending more and more time with my family in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin – a place where our family goes back six generations, to my great-great grandpa, who was the village blacksmith for 50 years.   As a child, the sandhill cranes were long-gone from that part of the world, but over the past decade or so, the sandhill cranes have made a remarkable comeback and, when back there, I will see or hear sandhill cranes daily – something that would have seemed impossible decades ago.

To this day, when I hear the eerie, somewhat haunting and pre-historic, calls of the sandhill cranes I think of Aldo Leopold and offer my thanks and praise for his life’s work.

If you get a chance this weekend, pick up your copy of A Sand County Almanac and let Leopold’s words mesmerize and flow over you.  A great video on the life and legacy of Aldo Leopold has also just been released.  You can watch a nice 12 minute trailer here: http://vimeo.com/8669977.

Below are two of Leopold’s quotes, which really touch me, as I’m sure they do others.

“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”

“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I was young then, and full of trigger itch. I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunter’s paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf, nor the mountain, agreed with such a view.”

HCN: You can’t keep a cow from water (or Jon Marvel from grazing issues)

by

Paul Larmer has the entire interview in the latest issue of High Country News. Below is the opening:

In September, the Western Watersheds Project announced that it was seeking a successor to Jon Marvel, its founder and executive director. Marvel, who lives in Hailey, Idaho, began his campaign to end public lands grazing back in the early 1990s, following a dispute with a neighboring rancher whose cattle bedded down on Marvel’s property and munched on his grass. This inspired Marvel, an architect, to start the Idaho Watersheds Project.

His group made headlines in 1996 when it successfully bid on state grazing leases with the intent of removing cows from the range once it controlled the leases. Marvel’s goal, both then and now, was to puncture what he sees as the unholy alliance between ranchers and public-lands agencies, which, he says, has caused the ecological degradation of most of the West through excessive livestock grazing. High Country News covered his bare-knuckled crusade in an in-depth cover story in 1999. HCN Publisher Paul Larmer recently caught up with the 65-year-old activist via phone.  Click here to read the interview.

“Scientific Integrity” and Klamath Dam Fish Fight

by

People disagree; scientists disagree, and yet people have to manage them, and data, and interpersonal, supervisor and inter-institutional bad chemistry, dislikes, vendettas and power struggles. It’s not easy to do that.

In my view, real “scientific integrity” involves QA/QC, and data and review that are open and transparent. Anyway, I just saw the Nature article on the Klamath fish fight in Roger Pielke Jrs.’ Twitter feed, though I had seen the PEER document earlier.

Here’s a link to the Nature blog post and below is an excerpt:

Seven US fisheries scientists have raised a formal complaint claiming that a supervisor threatened to eliminate their research division after the team produced controversial model predictions of survival and recovery of the threatened coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) in the Klamath River Basin in Oregon.

“This falls into the basket of obstruction of science for policy or political ends,” says Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), based in Washington, DC. The watchdog group filed the complaint of scientific misconduct on 7 January to the Department of Interior on behalf of the scientists who work at the US Bureau of Reclamation office in Klamath Falls, Oregon.

For years, federal research on Klamath Basin fish and wildlife has been caught in an intense debate about whether to tear down a series of hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. Many environmentalists have blamed the dams for salmon die-offs and ecological decline, but some researchers have questioned the magnitude of expected benefits from dam removal.

The letter alleges that Klamath Basin Area Office manager Jason Phillips violated the agency’s scientific integrity policy adopted in 2011 as part of President Barack Obama’s nation-wide initiative to protect science from political interference. According to the letter, the scientists believe Phillips intended to shut down the research group — known as the Fisheries Resources Branch — after perceiving the team’s work on salmon and other fish contradicted the plans and findings of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The documents are linked in the Nature article. My point is that the scientists disagree. That’s OK, in fact that’s what makes science go! We just don’t have good scientific conflict identification and resolution mechanisms, IMHO.

Once upon a time, so long ago that I doubt that many people who are still working remember it, I went to a all Region 6 meeting on biodiversity. I remember that Jerry Franklin gave a talk and said something about genetics that the geneticists there disagreed with. So we went up to Jerry afterwards and said “but Jerry, geneticists don’t agree with that” and he said something along the lines of , “well I spoke with geneticist X. Why don’t you all get your stuff together?” (this may sound a bit abrupt but he didn’t actually say it abruptly, more with a tone of exasperation as in “how is anyone else supposed to know?”) Which is really, when you think about it, a darn good question.

At the time I remember thinking, “well, of course, there is actually no mechanism for “getting your stuff together.”

What do we have?

1) Meetings where each scientist does a presentation with 5 minutes for questions. Not much can happen in terms of dialogue on deep subjects in 5 minutes.

2) Journals… well, you can’t really have back and forth.

3) Blogs.. you can but many folks don’t feel that that’s their job to discuss with other scientists who disagree (and everyone is busy, so you understand). These can also degenerate.

4) “Science” panels. Usually they only pick one of each discipline, so you don’t get to hear within-discipline disagreements.

5) Regulator vs. regulated agency science disputes. Goal of managers is to put them to bed and move on… not to understand what is really true scientifically. No patience or public transparency. This is probably also true for private firms with in-house scientists that are regulated by agencies, but I don’t have direct experience with those.)

Anyway, I think a well structured, disciplined, and public discussion of points of view of NOAA, FWS, BOR and anyone else involved could move our mutual knowledge forward. I think “scientific integrity” is a total red herring (so to speak) in this case.

One more thing…if I were Congress I would only let one agency be funded to study one topic. We could save enormous amounts of money if several agencies were not allowed to pursue the same research topics without requirements, management and accountability for coordination (at least, and preferably some kind of utility in minds other than that of those to be funded). I personally have been in climate change research meetings where it appeared that BOR, USGS, and FWS were studying exactly the same thing; and obviously not required to, nor actually doing any, coordinating. Add NOAA and USDA to the mix, and you basically have a research pigpile at the public trough. At some of those research stakeholder meetings, I was embarrassed to be a fed. As in the Klamath case, to have a dispute, three agencies must have been studying the same thing.

The Esperanza Fire: Interview with John Maclean

by

maclean

The Forestry Source is one of my favorite publications, and Steve Wilent I thought did an excellent job on the interview with John Maclean on his new book on the Esperanza Fire. Now, fire suppression isn’t my favorite topic, but even I was intrigued enough to want to read the book after reading the interview.And

Here’s a link to the book.

Here’s a link to the Forestry Source. Steve and the Society of American Foresters were kind enough to let us link to the whole edition; some of those that interested me were the interview with Maclean, an article on the EPA/roads/Supreme Court issue, a piece on carbon offsets and the California emissions trading program and a piece by Jim Coufal on his views on whither foresters and forestry.

If you would like to discuss any of the other pieces in the source, send me your thoughts and I’ll make it a separate post so we don’t get them all on this comment thread ([email protected]).

MT Wolverine Trapping Season Ended, Feds to list species as “Threatened”

by
Stop-Action of a wolverine in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge national Forest. Photo by Chad Harder.
Stop-Action of a wolverine in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge national Forest. Photo by Chad Harder.

Back on a warm and sunny day in August, we told you that the Western Environmental Law Center, on behalf of eight local conservation groups and one individual, submitted a formal petition to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Commission (“MFWP”) to halt the trapping of wolverine in Montana – the only state in the contiguous U.S. that still allows the imperiled animal to be trapped.

Well, yesterday a Montana District Court judge signed an order, effectively ending the 2012/2013 wolverine trapping season in Montana, because it appears as if the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is likely to issue a proposed rule to list wolverine as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) in the coming weeks. You may recall that back in 2010 the USFWS issued a “warranted but precluded” finding.

I’ve had the good fortune of seeing a wolverine in the wild pretty close up, back in 1996 at the very tippy-top of the Mission Mountain Wilderness.  Given that wolverines are such rare, widely displaced animals, with an “effective population” in Montana of less than 35, I certainly welcome this news and congratulate the groups and activists who made it possible. Below is a press release from the conservation groups:

(Helena) Montana District Court Judge Sherlock signed an order today granting a joint motion from the State of Montana and the conservation groups to cancel a preliminary injunction hearing scheduled for January 10th to see if the injunction stopping wolverine trapping should remain in place. Today’s order effectively ends the 2012-2013 wolverine trapping season in Montana.

The Western Environmental Law Center (WELC) filed a lawsuit on behalf of several conservation groups in October 2012 in state district court against the State of Montana to end the trapping of wolverines, a candidate species awaiting federal Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) protections. Helena Hunters and Anglers, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, and 6 other conservation groups’ request for a temporary restraining order to suspend wolverine trapping in Montana was granted on November 30, 2012.

“Common sense prevailed” said Matthew Bishop, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center who is representing the plaintiffs. “With the 2012-2013 wolverine trapping season effectively over, new leadership at the State, and the likely federal listing of wolverines as a threatened species in the coming months, Montana is well positioned to take a leading role in wolverine conservation in the lower 48. I hope the State takes advantage of this opportunity” added Bishop.

“This is great news that this year’s wolverine trapping season is over,” said Swan View Coalition Chair Keith Hammer. “Hopefully, wolverine will soon gain the threatened species protections they need so desperately, including a permanent ban on the intentional killing of wolverines.”

Mike Garrity, Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies said, “We’re happy to see the Montana Department of Fish Wildlife and Parks make the right decision and agree to keep the restraining order in place. The Bullock administration is getting off to a good start.”

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is likely to issue a proposed rule to list wolverine as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) in the coming weeks. A proposed rule is expected to be sent to the Federal Register by January 18, 2013. Wolverines will likely be listed under the Endangered Species Act and federally protected before the next wolverine trapping season starts.

Arlene Montgomery,Program Director for Friends of the Wild Swan said, “Wolverine are the real winners with this agreement. With the threat of trapping off the table for this season, the agency can now focus on recovering wolverines.”

Once prolific across the West, the entire population of wolverine in the Lower 48 states is now down to no more than 250-300 individuals. Population estimates for Montana range from approximately 100 – 175 individuals. A substantial number of the remaining wolverines in Montana are likely unsuccessful breeders or non- breeding sub-adults. The best available science estimates that Montana’s “effective population” of wolverines is less than 35. Montana is the only place in the contiguous states that still allows trapping these rare animals.

Much like polar bears, global climate change is imperiling wolverines due to habitat destruction. Wolverines require deep, late-spring snowpack for denning and raising young and cold year- round temperatures. As suitable habitat is fragmented or vanishes, populations become ever more isolated and reproduction becomes much more difficult.

WELC, on behalf of eight conservation groups and an individual, petitioned Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to halt trapping in August, well before the season was slated to start on December 1, 2012. But the State refused to consider the best available science or arguments made in support of the petition. Nor did the State provide any response to public comments asking for the end of wolverine trapping. Consequently, the conservation groups filed suit in state district court in October, challenging continued trapping as a violation of state laws requiring maintenance or restoration of rare animals.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated the wolverine as a species that “warrants protection under the federal Endangered Species Act” in 2010 after determining that the already small and vulnerable population will continue to decline. Trapping represents and additional threat to wolverine mortality in Montana. In one study, of the 14 wolverines tracked in the Pioneer Mountains during a three-year period, 6 were killed in traps, including 4 adult males and two pregnant females. As a result of trapping, the wolverine population in the Pioneers was reduced by an estimated 50%.

In Montana, Dark Money Helped Democrats Hold a Key Senate Seat

by

We’ve had many discussions about Montana Senators on this blog… thought this article from High Country News was worthy of posting. Here is the link and below are excerpts.

Such spending played a greater role in the Montana Senate race than almost any other. With control of the U.S. Senate potentially at stake, candidates, parties and independent groups spent more than $51 million on this contest, all to win over fewer than 500,000 voters. That’s twice as much as was spent when Tester was elected in 2006.

Almost one quarter of that was dark money, donated secretly to nonprofits.

“It just seems so out of place here,” said Democrat Brian Schweitzer, the governor of Montana who leaves office at the end of this year. “About one hundred dollars spent for every person who cast a vote. Pretty spectacular, huh? And most of it, we don’t have any idea where it came from. Day after the election, they closed up shop and disappeared into the dark.”

Political insiders say the Montana Senate race provided a particularly telling glimpse at how campaigns are run in the no-holds-barred climate created by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, giving a real-world counterpoint to the court’s assertion that voters could learn all they needed to know about campaign funding from disclosure.

and

Montana Republicans blamed Montana Hunters and Anglers, made up of a super PAC and a sister dark money nonprofit, for tipping the race. Even though super PACs have to report their donors, the Montana Hunters and Anglers super PAC functioned almost like a dark money group. Records show its major donors included an environmentalist group that didn’t report its donors and two super PACs that in turn raised the bulk of their money from the environmentalist group, other dark money groups and unions.

“Part of what’s frustrating to me is I look at Montana Hunters and Anglers and say, ‘That is not fair,'” said Bowen Greenwood, executive director for the Montana Republican Party. “I am a hunter. I know plenty of hunters. And Montana hunters don’t have their positions. It would be fairer if it was called Montana Environmental Activists. That would change the effect of their ads.”

Cox and Tester deny the group’s efforts swung the race. No one from Montana Hunters and Anglers returned calls for comment.

Note from Sharon: I know that we are a nation of laws, and that law is interpreted by courts, and the Supreme Court, is, well, Supreme, but something about this creeps me out. I wonder what environmental group was doing the funding.

Strategic (sic) Management

by

Incompetence1

We’ve blogged before about employees ranking the Forest Service as one of the worst places in federal government to work. That discussion focused on senior leadership, which ranks 274th out of 290 agencies evaluated.

But, there is one category that ranks even lower. When it comes to “Strategic Management,” Forest Service workers score their agency 286th. Only the benighted Transportation Security Administration, the Cold War relic Voice of America, the 200 obviously disgruntled employees at the Office of Post-secondary Education, and HUD’s apparently clueless Office of Chief Information Officer rank below the Forest Service when it comes to strategic management.

So what does the survey mean by “strategic management?” The survey says it “measures the extent to which employees believe that management ensures they have the necessary skills and abilities to do their jobs, is successful at hiring new employees with the necessary skills to help the organization, and works to achieve the organizational goals with targeted personnel strategies and performance management.” In other words, strategic management is all about Human Resources.

Consider Avue. Avue is a privately-owned subsidiary of Carahsoft Technology Corporation whose gig is leasing computer-based human resource “solutions” to government agencies. In 2005, the Forest Service entered into a contract with Avue to subscribe to its “ADS Modules.” The ADS Modules wrote job announcements and position descriptions. When a Forest Service office wanted to hire a seasonal firefighter, for example, its HR staff would turn to the on-line Avue database to create the job advertisement and when the FS hired the employee, Avue would print out the worker’s duties.

FS employee antipathy towards Avue is exemplified by this comment on a firefighter website.

HALLELUJAH!!!!! The end of AVUE is coming soon!!! Lets do this RIGHT Forest Service! To be honest, if we were required to use a 1972 typewriter and mail the application on one of those Wells Fargo stagecoaches, that would be better than AVUE. Anything would be better than AVUE.

Between 2005 and 2011, the Forest Service paid Avue over $34 million for this service (2.7 MB pdf). Last year, the Forest Service decided not to renew its contract with Avue and return the work of job recruitment and position description writing to government employees.

So, just another example of Bush-era outsourcing that didn’t work so well. But, wait, there’s more.

It turns out that the Forest Service has to re-write position descriptions for its 40,000 employees because the FS doesn’t actually own any of the PDs written during the Avue era. What the Forest Service bought for its $34 million was a subscription license to use Avue output during the contract period only. Avue retains title to the position descriptions themselves and the license agreement bars the Forest Service from using any of the PD content for any purpose, including to crib from while writing its new PDs.

Even more galling is that most of the content of each PD was input originally into the Avue system by Forest Service employees using their pre-Avue PDs. The Forest Service is not allowed use of this original source data either, having forfeited its ownership when it entered the data into the Avue system.