Planning Rules, Manuals and Handbooks – a flashback

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Here is a post from a short-lived blog I ran in 2005, Forest Planning Directives, about Forest Service planning Manual/Handbook rewriting. I think it may shed light on our planning rule critique as well. And it can serve as a guidepost, for the inevitable Manual/Handbook rewriting that will ensue just after the Draft Planning Rule moves to “Final.” Here it is, lightly edited:

Any role at all for NFMA Directives?

I have struggled for the last few days to better understand management and planning systems and ask myself whether we ought to keep any parts of the "interim directives." As usual I answer, No! You may find my thoughts amusing. You may find them bemusing. There is an odd chance you may find my thoughts enlightening. Here they are:

Land Management Planning as an Embedded Process

We have many processes (or systems) to help us manage the national forests and other public lands. Problem is these systems are often fractured and fragmented, and sometimes work at cross-purposes. We have tried to run our systems as pieces of a well-oiled machine. But it can’t work that way. The world is too complex for that, and sometimes politically wicked as well. A better management model is one that mimics nature, one comprised of self-organized complex adaptive systems. See Margaret Wheatley and Mryon Kellner-Rogers A Simpler Way for more.

Looking at things hierarchically, in a complex systems frame, we can see land management planning systems embedded in planning systems, embedded as part of "management systems."

Forest Service Management Systems
It proves helpful to see the map of interrelated systems that aid in adaptive management/organizational learning. Commonly recognized systems include:

  • Assessment Systems
  • Evaluation Systems
  • Inventory Systems
  • Monitoring Systems
  • Planning Systems

Add to these supporting systems, like:

  • Education and Training Systems
  • Personnel Recruitment and Support Systems
  • Budgeting and Finance Systems
  • Information Technology Systems
  • And so on

Now overlay all these with various "functions," like:

  • Vegetation management (timber, range, etc.)
  • Bio-physical resource management (soil and water, wildlife, plants, etc.)
  • Fire management (suppression, pre-suppression, etc.)
  • Facilities management systems
  • Recreation management systems
  • And so on

Finally overlay all with what we refer to as "Line Management," with about:

  • 900 District Rangers, who report to
  • 120 Forest Supervisors, who report to
  • 9 Regional Foresters, who report to
  • 1 Chief Forester

Now we can begin to get a glimpse of the complex nature of the management systems that we attempt organization with. The trick to all this is to make sure that the systems are not only complex, but adaptive and purposefully interrelated as well. No small order. And there are traps along the path we need to be aware of.

Decision Traps
Identifying systems and subsystems can either empower us or disable us. There are two traps that people commonly fall into here. First, we do not want to overly-reduce the complexity that enfolds us or we may develop overly complex systems or components in any one area, and at the same time neglect other important areas. This trap has been called "Abstracted Empiricism" or "Methodism."

Second, we may simply trap ourselves in the identification of the complex systems themselves. This trap is called "Grand Theory," where the trapped are paralyzed by their own overly-generalized identification and specification of complexity in the universe. In extreme form, this trap paralyzes people to the extent that they do not attempt any organization at all.

Interconnectivity, Dynamics, and Relationships
Traditionally we like to think of our organization as decentralized. But given law, policy, and Manual and Handbooks, etc. it is hardly decentralized.

We also traditionally think of our organization as working according to the dictates of "directives" that guide much of the action. Problem is, the directives tend not to be able to guide the workings of this (or any other) complex, adaptive, system. So what we have is a mess. We pretend to be decentralized, but that cannot be. We pretend to be directed in much of what we do, but the direction seems at best archaic, at worst unworkable from the get-go.

All the management systems are highly inter-connected. For now we will simply recognize them without pigeonholing them into some rigid structure like "plan-do-check- replan." This is not to say that we won’t keep that model in mind. Instead we don’t want to get trapped into thinking that is all we have to do. Our general approach should be mindful of our over-complexification dark side, our penchant to narrow our focus to the inner reaches of whatever box we find ourselves in and begin crafting ever-more- complex regulation, rules, technical guides, etc.

Take planning, for example. We have to plan before we develop any system or subsystem. But we can over-plan any system and ruin it. See, e.g. Henry Mintzberg, The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, 1994. In the Forest Service we have many over- planned and under-used systems. A lesson we continue to fail to learn, is that we need to design systems that can grow and develop as "users" continuously critique them and improve them. That means we have to start small, and let systems grow and develop as they are used. It also means that we have to weed out components, subsystems, and even whole systems that have outlived their usefulness. Pruning and tending are important, if unglamorous tasks in managing systems.

We need fewer teams of people to design work for other people, and more teams that design their own work and do it in ways that both improve and simplify the systems they work with. W. Edwards Deming champions such organization in his The New Economics: For Industry Government Education. Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers lay out fundamental ideas and concepts on organization, information, and relationships in A Simpler Way. I recommend reading the books beginning with A Simpler Way, then moving to The New Economics, and finally for the devoted (and particularly for planning cheer-leaders) reading The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning. But there is no way to practice adaptive management if we are unwilling to think about and read about ways to make it happen.

What does this mean for Manuals and Handbooks?
It means only that we had better do something very different from 18-30 feet of shelf space filled with cumbersome Manuals and Handbooks. We had better cut it all to the bare minimum. We had better take advantage of what’s out there in professional practice, and only add what must be added to help professionals work in our environment. It means The End of Bureaucracy & the Rise of the Intelligent Organization, which is also a very informative book written by Gifford and Elizabeth Pinchot. {Note Gifford is the grandson of the Forest Service’s founder.}

In this spirit, the Forest Service economists recently reduced about 100 pages of Manual and Handbook materials (FSM 1970, FSH 1909.17) to about 2 ¼ pages each for Manual and Handbook. The manual says, in essence, address social and economic context in various ways and places to help set a stage for managerial decision making. And highlight the social and economic consequence of proposed (and actual) action to the extent practical and foreseeable.

What does this mean for the Land Management Planning Manual & Handbook?
For Land Management Planning it means that we need to design and work with a subsystem that contributes to the whole rather than being parasitic on the whole. It means we need to quit thinking about controlling other systems. We need instead to think about contributing our small part to a broader whole.

First lets look at broad management systems. What might such a systems look like? What directives might guide it? The system is a complex web of multiply interrelated systems, all sharing some information with other systems while holding some information within any given system since it only adds "noise" to other systems. All systems are interrelated as well by the relationships between them, and by the relationships between those who take care of each system, and by the relationships of these people with those whose focus is broader, covering several or all systems.

Sustainability
The system is purpose driven, wandering down a path toward what many call sustainability. We know that the path is long, winding, and indeterminate. Sustainability is a vision quest. Sustainability is something that shape-shifts as we move down the path. But sustainability is also something that we are ever-mindful of. It is a goal that hovers in front of us, guiding us. Ecosystem constraints bound the path – some associated with natural and biological systems, some associated with human systems.

Long term, we are rewarded when we stay on the path toward sustainability, and punished when we stray beyond the bounds. Short term, we often blow the boundaries, sometimes by political design and sometimes by human error. Such deviations are punished, but the punishment may be felt by "contemporaneous others" or "future others." There are lags, often very long ones, in the feedback loops.

Surrounding our complex of managerial systems, and connected to them are broader-framed social systems with names like science, ethics, politics, beliefs, participation, that are part of the social/cultural environment. These systems interrelate with natural systems in the physical and biological realms.

Now let’s look at land management planning systems, embedded in ever-larger adaptive management frames.

Land Management Planning
What questions might guide our inquiry? (Similar questions might be framed for any planning)

  • What is planning?
  • How does it fit into adaptive management?
  • What do we expect from planning?
    • What if desired deliverables do not include a plan? Remember that Scenario Planning advocates and many others do not believe that the goal of planning be the production of a plan. Instead, they stress the importance of planning to rehash the past and rehearse the future.
  • If we expect a plan, along with other deliverables, what do we want it to do?
    • If we only want a plan to be a vision document, perchance highlighting vision over a variety of landscapes, but not making any how-to decisions, then we will answer this question much differently than if we expect a much more comprehensive, detailed plan.

Why bother with any Manual or Handbook? Why isn’t the NFMA Rule enough directive? Perchance the NFMA Rule is already too much directive, but that is a question for another time.

——————————–

2011 Update: Closely Related Posts
Why Three Planning Levels?
New Planning Rules Fails as Adaptive Management
The Frame Game

Newsbite: Alaska Roadless Decision

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For those of you who follow roadless, here’s a link.

This was an interesting quote:

The Sierra Club’s Mark Rorick says that’s not the case.

“The roadless rule does not stop personal use wood permits, and it does not stop access or road-building to mines. It allows utility corridors through the roadless areas. It allows corridors for hydro. All these things that people are saying the roadless rule would stop are just not true.”

Not too long ago, in a courtroom not far away, we were in litigation about a pipeline where the plaintiffs argued that building a linear facility required the equivalent of a “road” which was not OK by the 2001 Rule. We argued the same as Rorick and won. It’s nice when we can all agree.

HCN Story on Planning Rule: New National Forest Rule Lacks Rigor

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Camas blooming on the Malheur NF, by Dave Powell, USFS

Here’s the link.

Here is a quote.

But it’s precisely that flexibility that worries Peter Nelson, federal lands director at Defenders of Wildlife. “Flexibility absent consistent guidance can lead to a variety of outcomes for water and wildlife,” he says, “not all of them good.” For instance, “the proposal directs forest managers to provide for the viability of species” — to make sure, in other words, that no species is at risk of extinction. “But it also says that if you’re not able to, you don’t have to. And it’s not clear to me how forest managers are required to prove that they can’t.”

The proposed rule requires forest supervisors to develop plans that “maintain or restore the structure, function, composition, and connectivity of a healthy and resilient ecosystem,” writes Tony Tooke, the agency’s director of ecosystem management coordination, in an e-mail. Yet there’s little in the rule to define those terms.

“How will you or I know that we’ve walked into a resilient ecosystem?” Nelson says. “There’s no clear criteria set out in the draft to determine that.” Nor does it require proof in numbers that such an ecosystem is, as the proposal assumes, beneficial to a variety of wildlife. “I’m afraid the Forest Service thinks monitoring at the species level is burdensome,” Nelson says. “I think of it as a trust-building exercise.” With ecosystem protection as with nuclear arms control, it’s “trust, but verify.”

In short, the new rule leaves a lot up to the discretion of local forest managers. That’s not necessarily bad: Forest supervisors can observe changes at the local level that would elude bureaucrats in D.C. “It’s hard at the regulation level to provide any one-size-fits-all standard,” says Martin Nie, associate professor of natural resource policy at the University of Montana. “I can think of some forest supervisors who’ll go to town with this thing in terms of meaningful standards and requirements.”

Local supervisors under pressure from politics or industry, however, could theoretically veer in a less constructive direction. “The pushback is always economics,” says Congressman Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., who has criticized the proposal for weakening wildlife protection. “But when you have habitat shrinking, species disappearing and wild places not being protected, your decision-making can’t be subjected to biased outside pressure. You have to have strong federal oversight to make sure what you do is based on facts and science.”

Timber and other industry interests have not yet commented on the rule, except to say they’re watching it closely. Meanwhile, the Forest Service will take public comments through May 16.

Francis thinks everyone should consider contributing. For Westerners, “the planning rule affects everything from where you hike to the quality of your drinking water.” After all, it’s your plane the agency is piloting, he says, “and you need to have some way of knowing whether it’s staying on course.”

The funny thing about this to me is that I think I agree with Peter, for opposite reasons. He sees the FS requiring conceptual ideas like resilience as questionable, because he doesn’t know that the concept means what he wants (protecting species). I don’t like requiring concepts in regulations because judges will ultimately decide anything fuzzy based, more than likely, on their own views.

In any conflictual writing exercise (say legislation, writing plans), fuzzy and vague seems good at first because everyone seems to get what they want. It’s when the poor implementers take it forward (and get litigated) we realize that we just postponed, and changed the arena of, the conflict.

Here’s a quote from Martin in the same article:

In short, the new rule leaves a lot up to the discretion of local forest managers. That’s not necessarily bad: Forest supervisors can observe changes at the local level that would elude bureaucrats in D.C. “It’s hard at the regulation level to provide any one-size-fits-all standard,” says Martin Nie, associate professor of natural resource policy at the University of Montana. “I can think of some forest supervisors who’ll go to town with this thing in terms of meaningful standards and requirements.”

But it’s not the supes we really have to worry about.. at least according to Congressman Grijalva..

Local supervisors under pressure from politics or industry, however, could theoretically veer in a less constructive direction. “The pushback is always economics,” says Congressman Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., who has criticized the proposal for weakening wildlife protection. “But when you have habitat shrinking, species disappearing and wild places not being protected, your decision-making can’t be subjected to biased outside pressure. You have to have strong federal oversight to make sure what you do is based on facts and science.”

I guess it’s politicians ;).

The Future of America’s National Forests Depends on Revised Laws and a Restored U.S. Forest Service

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Guest post by Les Joslin

Few would dispute the notion that the National Forest System and the U.S. Forest Service are impaled on the horns of a dilemma of dysfunction. On one horn is the lack of a clear-cut role for the national forests. On the other is the lack of an agency staffed by professional forest officers at all levels able to efficiently and effectively manage those lands.

As a consequence, one of our nation’s great treasures, the 193-million-acre National Forest System established by President Theodore Roosevelt and Forester Gifford Pinchot early in the 20th century and managed for its citizen-owners by the Forest Service for the past 105 years, is at risk. At risk with them are the commodity resources—clean water, timber, livestock forage, wildlife habitat—and amenity resources—scenery, outdoor and wilderness recreation, and more—that benefit all. In the West, close to 70 percent of domestic water originates in the forests. Also at risk is the economic survival of hundreds of rural communities that depend on the forests for jobs created by renewable resources and by recreation.

The role of the National Forest System, of course, is a matter of law. Indeed, of laws—too many and often conflicting laws. Evolution of a clear-cut role for the national forests is as critical as it would be complicated. It would depend on a successful legislative review and revision of these myriad laws to produce a more workable definition and implementation of that role. This is a challenge to the political will of our nation.

Successful meeting of this challenge would produce a revised and realistic legal framework for the National Forest System and for the smaller and more efficient and effective Forest Service necessitated by the get-real-about-deficit-reduction future faced by the U.S. Government and the American people as the United States careens toward national bankruptcy. This would support a revised forest planning rule that would prioritize and implement the community relations and resource management field work that needs to be done and would not be driven by selfish interests and peripheral considerations.

Whatever the role of the National Forest System, a truly viable U.S. Forest Service would have a well-defined national forest management mission implemented by leaders who lead effectively and followers learning to lead effectively—a professional corps of line and staff officers with field savvy and agency panache who understand and practice the art and science of, as the Forest Service’s own motto puts it, “caring for the land and serving people.”

This would be a corps of capable and competent “forest rangers” present and visible in the forests rather than hidden away in offices; supported by rather than subservient to technologies; doing jobs rather than outsourcing them. This would be a corps that capitalizes on rather than squanders its proud heritage, and attracts rather than alienates those who would serve in it rather than just work for it. This would be a corps worthy of the admiration and respect and support of the National Forest System citizen-owners who should be served and would be served by it.

The functional Forest Service of yore grew its own corps of forest officers—dedicated professionals and technicians—on mostly rural or remote ranger districts on which the district ranger depended on each and every member of his small crew to ride for the brand and pull his or her own weight to “get it done” together. But most such ranger districts have been lost to consolidation and urbanization and cultural change. And the generalists they grew have been replaced by more narrowly-focused specialists.

Developing such a corps is the essential challenge for the Forest Service leadership and its U.S. Department of Agriculture masters.

Without such ranger districts offering the formative experiences and training they once did, the Forest Service should train qualified men and women selected to serve as forest officers at a national, residential U.S. Forest Service Academy situated on a national forest that could accommodate and provide and materially benefit from—much as teaching hospitals do with medical students—a wide range of rigorous academic and field experiences. This academy would comprise an entry-level officer candidate school and a mid-career advanced course. And, during its earlier years, it would conduct a short update course for current district rangers.

At the officer candidate school, those recruited to be the line and staff professionals and leaders of the Forest Service would learn to be forest officers first and specialists in one or more relevant disciplines—in which they already would have academic degrees or significant experience—second.

The challenging course would inspire the will, inform the intellect, and develop the physical and practical and philosophical wherewithal of a corps of professional and technical members—not employees, but members—who would be the able and willing and dedicated forest officers required by the Forest Service. After significant career assignments and experiences, these forest officers could return to the academy for mid-career training to further their preparation for district ranger and senior line as well as staff assignments. The academy would be an intellectual and cultural wellspring of the Forest Service, an institutional home of the resolve and resourcefulness the Forest Service needs to succeed at any well-defined mission revised laws would prescribe.

Now is the time to act. It’s too late for a business-as-usual, study-it-again-sometime, put-it-off-until-somebody-else-is-President-or-Secretary-or-Chief approach. The national treasure that is the National Forest System is at risk now, the Forest Service is in extremis now, and the time for action—real action leading to early results to save both the System and the Service for the citizen-owners of the former and the good people of the latter—is now!

Audacious? Yes! Expensive? Yes! But certainly not too expensive for a U.S. Government that allocates hundreds of billions of dollars to rescue Wall Street and spends over two billion dollars (in 1997 dollars) per copy for B-2 Spirit stealth bombers. Indeed, the entire proposed U.S. Forest Service overhaul process could be funded and the entire proposed U.S. Forest Service Academy could be established and operated for a decade or two for half the cost of just one of those bombers.

Expensive? Yes, except when one considers that the value of the national forests to their citizen-owners is in the trillions of dollars, and that these lands are the source of life-supporting water for millions of people and myriad other values for millions more.

Expensive? Yes, except when compared with the millions of dollars spent on wildfires and the billions of dollars in damages to the land and citizens resulting from these holocausts.

Expensive? Yes, except when compared with the opportunity costs of the bureaucratic equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns.

Isn’t a truly effective investment in the future administration of the National Forest System and all the benefits derived by its citizen-owners in terms of commodity and amenity resources as well as jobs and more stable communities worth at least that much?

Impossible? Only if we tell ourselves it is, roll over, and give up.

Les Joslin is a retired U.S. Navy commander and former U.S. Forest Service firefighter, wilderness ranger, and staff officer. He teaches wilderness management for Oregon State University, writes Forest Service history, and edits the Pacific Northwest Forest Service Association’s quarterly OldSmokeys Newsletter. He lives in Bend, Oregon.

Voice in Democracy: When Anonymity Helps

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As we are seeing these days in the Middle East and Africa, even Wisconsin, democracy is never easy—whether to initiate or to keep. What we know is that we cannot maintain a democratic form of government without “voice.” After all, democracies are “temples of talk.” Yet, many times it proves too threatening to express opinions, or even to interject facts, into public discussions. Discussions sometimes threaten work, family, or community relations, yet without discussions, none of these institutions can long survive. In many situations, only the few dare voice opposition to either the status quo or to proposed change. But these days it is getting easier to be heard without some of the threat that has traditionally attached to voice. We are seeing an upwelling of “anonymity” as a form of voice.

I follow a bunch of blogs in the economics and finance arena. Believe me, there are a bunch of these. As you might guess, given recent financial shenanigans events, there are very active conversations in these blogs, and also in mainstream periodicals—that themselves now embed blogs. Some who comment and some who blog remain anonymous. Why? Because of perceived threats, sometimes very real threats. Anonymity allows a particular voice that would be disallowed if people were to “post” or comment under their real names.

Here are two examples. One noted financial blogger, The Epicurean Dealmaker, posts as TED (an acronym). TED is widely viewed as a sage in the arena of Wall Street financial deal-making. TED claims to be a mid- to higher-level employee of a Wall Street firm. He (or she? Not likely!) has been very critical of the culture wherein he makes a fine living. And his posts, and guarded/shielded interviews, have helped to unravel some of the mysteries of this arcane world. TED is unabashed. He even challenges people to find out who he is. He is so sure of himself that he believes that he will not be “outed.”

Then there is Maxine Udall (girl economist), who spent a few years blogging and attracted a following. Turns out that “Maxine” was not her real name. Unfortunately, the real author passed away suddenly a few weeks ago. She was “outed” after her untimely passing. Most everybody had previously thought Maxine was a savvy graduate student. Turns out that she was a professor. Had she been blogging under her real name, her voice would have been less edgy.

If you want to comment with anonymity, here’s what you can do. First create a fictitious name/email address, then begin commenting. Or, particularly if you want to carry conversation “off line” set up a real email, like TED did, with a “handle”, not your real name. If you feel you have more to say, start an anonymous blog—it is very easy.

We need more “voice” in the public lands arena. I don’t understand why there are not more blogs on matters we discuss here. Is it just timidity? Is it that there is so little passion among employees and public lands watchers? Really? Likely not. So what else is going on?

The Rating Feature

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Dave Iverson has suggested we experiment with using the like or dislike feature on this blog. This should help us get a sense of what some of you quiet readers are thinking.

Also, I set it up “like and dislike” for comments and for pages, so you can tell us if you like Andy’s KISS proposal, or other potential proposals we might place as a page.

So now there are two more elements on the sidebar- most frequently viewed posts (in the last 48 hours) and the highest rated posts and comments (not sure about timeframe).

Since this is an experiment, please write me if you don’t like the idea of using “like-dislike”- send an email to [email protected]. Or I guess you could simply rate this post..

Al Gore meets Bark Beetles: The Forests at Risk Symposium

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On February 18, Al Gore visited Aspen, Colorado for a symposium put on by For the Forest. Some of my colleagues attended and said that the presentations were excellent. Fortunately for those of us who couldn’t make it, the whole enchilada is posted here.

My colleagues especially recommended the Canadian and international perspectives as particularly interesting, as we are more aware of the local pest-related impacts. Those would be the Kurz and Allen presentations, and Linda Joyce is always worth hearing, so if you only have so much time, I would recommend those.

Here are a couple of quotes from a Denver Post news story here.

“The climate is changing,” said Forest Service ecologist Linda Joyce, speaking at “Forests at Risk: Climate Change & the Future of the American West.”
“Temperatures are warming and will likely continue to warm,” she said.
That will change the look of forests forever, but exactly what they will look like remains to be seen, she said.

Aspen, the iconic trees of the West, will probably vanish from mountainsides where they once thrived, Joyce said. Pine trees will retreat to cooler climes, and animals that depend on them will follow.

That leaves land managers trying to grapple with “the eventual loss of the plants and animals we know,” she said.

And

“It’s a challenge that I’ve never seen,” said Rick Cables, Rocky Mountain regional forester for the Forest Service. “. . . This context, the context of our times, with climate change and what we’re seeing on the landscape, is a game-changer.”

Government agencies are used to working slowly and juggling a variety of interests, from environmentalists to industry.

Those groups may have to learn to work together, Cables said, if land managers are to respond quickly. Tools such as fire and logging may be necessary, he said, even if they’re unpopular.”

FWIW, that’s the way I frame “climate change and forests” as well, that the shared challenge of climate change is calling for us to work together differently and, dare I say, better than we have in the past.

Finally, here’s a High Country News Goat Blog piece by Sarah Gilman, with a different take on the conference.

But the conversation was lacking in one glaring way — especially given the event’s location within striking distance of the mini-mall-sized houses (which loomed unignorably over my left shoulder through the giant picture windows of the Doerr-Hosier Center) peppering Red Mountain, the private jet-dominated airport which accounts for a sizeable chunk of Aspen’s greenhouse gas emissions, the four ski resorts that draw people here from all over the world.

No one pointed the finger back at us — at our insatiable appetite for energy, be it “dirty” or “clean;” at our use and over-use of resources — land, water, timber — regardless of our political affiliations or whether we’re global-warming believers. Energy efficiency and conservation got barely a nod. There was no mention of living smaller, closer to home. After the auditorium had cleared and everyone dispersed to a fancy reception with live music and free food, a colleague snarkily dubbed the day’s proceedings “Drive For the Forest.”

My next post will be relating the worldview described at this conference to the concepts in the proposed planning rule.

Time for a New Department of Public Lands?

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An old adage says, “Form follows function.” In my experience with the federal government it often works the other way around, i.e. Function follows form. Consider “collaborative engagement.” If you survey the landscape, you’ll often find the Forest Service attempting collaboration, while at the same time so is the Bureau of Land Management, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the US Park Service, etc. Each attempts to develop policy (often via planning) by “considering the needs” of adjacent land holdings, but they still do it for the most part alone. In single-agency collaboration and planning, function follows form.

Is it time to rethink federal agency “form” in the ongoing movement toward collaborative engagement in public lands management? In particular, is it time to rethink how the federal government functions in these deliberations? Is is time to relearn how form ought to follow function?

Along with many others I have argued that it proves inefficient for each federal agency to attempt ecosystem management deliberations by themselves—whether for assessment, policy development, action, or monitoring. It also proves frustrating for collaborators. Too many forums, too many meetings, etc. At a time when all eyes are on the federal government to trim its budget, why not, one again, hope for high-level reorganization.

A Department of Public Lands

Maybe it is time for a Department of Public Lands. Such a Department could effectively set up appropriate forums for collaborative engagement in public lands policy and action, in concert with state and local officials, and other collaborators.

If the Obama Administration plays its cards right during upcoming budget deficit battles, we might see it make a move toward a cabinet-level Department of Public Lands, complimented with a sister Department for Environmental Regulation. This second Department would serve to separate land management from regulatory policy and enforcement—an idea that we will leave for a later post.

Setting up a new Department of Public Lands would take the Forest Service out of the Department of Agriculture and allow it to start anew as a division or agency in the new department—in concert with The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management, The Park Service, etc. (It would probably be good to once-again consider combining the Forest Service with the Bureau of Land Management, as well.)

Such reorganization would allow for a fresh start, whereby the new Department of Lands and all its agencies could be chartered for collaborative engagement in adaptive management. (Or maybe just move the Forest Service into the Department of Interior, and follow a similar plan.) In the former case legislators and the Administration would have to work up new organic legislation, etc. But it is likely time to refresh “organic” framing anyway.

Either way, with a new Department of Public Lands or with the Forest Service moved into Interior, the public wins in at least five ways: First, outdated, bureaucratic agencies can be set up with structures and functions that work for the new century—championing collaborative engagement for conservation, preservation, and use. Second, the Department could field many questions about larger-scale management that are not well fielded under current structure. Third, many mid-level staff personnel, e.g. Forest Service Regional and National staff members, might be better positioned as Departmental positions. Why? So that when collaborators work out the regional assessment, action, and monitoring, the federal government will not be so fractured as it now is. Fourth, the taxpayers win as there should be fewer personnel in a Department so structured. Finally, more money can go to the field, where infrastructure and other needs have been neglected for too long.

Why Now?

There will never be a better time to think about this idea, since many mid-level (and high-level) Forest Service employees are near the end of their careers—i.e. no massive layoffs needed. So too with other land management agencies.

Why might it work now? Because in the next few years there will be many discussions on how to trim the federal deficit and whittle-down the national debt. This may give President Obama a chance to do what so many others have failed to do: bring the Forest Service into line with other federal land and resource management agencies. In doing so, Obama might make history by charting a new course for federal lands management.

Note: Jeff DeBonis and I offered up a similar suggestion early in the Clinton Administration. Ours was just one of many similar suggestions made through the years. The suggestions have never gained traction. Maybe this time will be different. Or maybe not.

The Musts & Shalls

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Unlike his Dad, he is a big fan of discretion and dislikes one-size fits-all standards. Five years on, he's now reading Appendix N.

One of my hopes for the new planning rule was that it would require the writing of meaningful forest plans.  Here is what I wrote as part of last year’s science panel (Nie NFS planning rule science panel statement):

There is little value in writing expensive, time-consuming plans if such plans make no decisions and have no vision. 

Legally-binding and enforceable standards and guidelines should be included in the new planning rule.  NFMA was designed to reign in agency discretion by providing clearer standards and enforceable checks on the USFS.  Meeting such standards has proven difficult for the agency at times.  But the solution is not the removal of such standards, but rather to figure out ways to more effectively and efficiently meet them. 

While inherently difficult, especially at the front-end, setting standards will facilitate adaptive management and collaborative decision making over the long run.  Regarding the former, standards help define the purpose and boundaries of the process.  After all, adaptive management is a means to an end, and that end needs to be clearly articulated.  Without standards, adaptive management is too susceptible to political exploitation and the dodging of tough political choices.  As for collaboration, standards provide the necessary direction, legal sideboards, and additional certainty to those engaged in the process.

This recommendation was precipitated by the vacuous nature of the 2005/2008 planning regulations that were essentially non-decision making documents. 

So on this score, what should we make of the proposed regulations?  I think they are a more serious effort by the USFS to appropriately balance the need for planning adaptability with political accountability. 

The regulations are heavy on things the agency must consider when writing and amending forest plans.  So I don’t think the rule will streamline or expedite the planning process.  But the draft regulations require (with some wiggle room provided) plans to include some important things, like standards (AMEN! with explanation here and here), guidelines, the suitability of areas, and to situate the national forests within their larger context and landscape, among others.  Under this rule, forest plans would actually mean something and include some important decisions. 

The “Musts and Shalls:”  Here are some things the draft regulations require (not exhaustive nor includes preexisting MUSYA/NFMA requirements):

 *The responsible official shall engage the public—including Tribes and Alaska Native Corporations, other Federal agencies.

 *One or more assessments must be conducted for the development of a new plan or for a plan revision

 *The responsible official shall develop a unit monitoring program for the plan area,

 *The regional forester shall develop a broader-scale monitoring strategy for unit monitoring questions that can best be answered at a geographic scale broader than one unit.

 *Each regional forester shall ensure that the broader-scale monitoring strategy is within the financial and technical capabilities of the region and complements other ongoing monitoring efforts.

 *The responsible official shall conduct a biennial evaluation of new information gathered through the unit monitoring program and relevant information from the broader-scale strategy, and shall issue a written report of the evaluation and make it available to the public

 *While all plans must contain the required five plan components (desired conditions, objectives, standards, guidelines, suitability of areas, and may contain goals), not every issue or resource plan would require all five plan components.

 *All plan amendments must comply with Forest Service NEPA procedures. The proposed rule provides that appropriate NEPA documentation for an amendment could be an EIS, an environmental assessment (EA), or a categorical exclusion (CE) depending upon the scope and scale of the amendment and its likely effects.  (more on this later)

 *This section would provide that projects and activities authorized after approval of a plan, plan revision, or plan amendment developed pursuant to this rule must be consistent with plan components as set forth in this section.

 *The proposed rule would allow for this to occur, and in § 219.7, would require identification of priority watersheds for restoration

 *The proposed rule would require the responsible official to document how the best available scientific information was taken into account in the assessment report, the plan decision document, and the monitoring evaluation reports.

 *Finally, plan components would be required to protect, maintain, and restore clean, abundant water supplies (both surface and groundwater sources), and soils, and productivity recognizing their importance as fundamental ecosystem resources and services.  (& as stated elsewhere “The proposed rule would require that plans include plan components to maintain, protect, and restore public water supplies, groundwater, sole source aquifers, and source water protection areas where they occur on NFS lands.”)

 *The proposed rule would highlight the importance of maintaining, protecting, or restoring riparian areas and the values such areas provide by requiring that plans include plan components to guide management with riparian areas. The proposed rule also requires that plans establish a default width within which those plan components apply.

 Not included on my list is the diversity provision, as that deserves a separate post.

Martin Nie, University of Montana

Andy’s Op-Ed

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GUEST VIEWPOINT: Obama threatens to shatter political peace in the forest

By Andy Stahl

Published: Wednesday, Mar 2, 2011 05:00AM, The Register-Guard

A generation ago, in the twilight of his career and his life, U.S. Sen. Hubert Humphrey shepherded into law a new manifesto for our national forests. With passage of the 1976 National Forest Management Act, former vice-president Humphrey predicted that “The days have ended when the forest may be viewed only as trees and trees viewed only as timber. The soil and the water, the grasses and the shrubs, the fish and the wildlife, and the beauty of the forest must become integral parts of the resource manager’s thinking and actions.” With Humphrey’s untimely death in 1978, he never got the chance to see his vision realized.

Humphrey’s 1976 law sought to make the U.S. Forest Service more responsive to public concerns about logging, especially clear-cutting. The law requires the Forest Service to explain and justify the ecological effects of its timbering practices. Long dominated by professional foresters trained to see forests as lumber, the new law led the Forest Service to retain wildlife, soil, fisheries and water experts to enlarge its perspective of trees and their values. In 1982, as required by NFMA, the Forest Service adopted forest planning rules that regulate logging to protect wildlife, water quality and soil productivity.

The years following were not smooth sailing. The Forest Service’s first attempts at justifying national forest logging levels and practices fell flat. The new forest plans proposed even more clear-cutting than before. National forest logging levels increased steadily from 10 billion board feet in 1976 to more than 12 billion by 1987. The Forest Service simply had not gotten Humphrey’s message.

But judges did. By the early 1990s, federal judges were being called upon to compel the Forest Service to obey the law, especially the wildlife protection provisions of NFMA and its 1982 forest planning rules. In the most famous such case, Seattle federal district court Judge William Dwyer noted “a remarkable series of violations of environmental laws” regarding Forest Service clear-cut logging of old-growth forests in Oregon and Washington in which the threatened northern spotted owl lived.

By 2000, logging levels had plummeted and, since then, they have stabilized at a sustainable 2 billion to 3 billion board feet. With most of the highly profitable old-growth forests long gone, the Forest Service now focuses its logging on reducing flammable brush and thinning small trees.

Apparently not content to let today’s political peace in the woods persist, the Obama administration has proposed to replace the 1982 forest planning rules. The new rules are long on flowery rhetoric, but short on forest protection substance. They replace simple principles such as protecting wildlife species with complex, difficult-to-define ecological pablum. The new rules appear designed to placate environmental interests with happy-talk, on the one hand, while, on the other, weakening the forest protection standards that Humphrey sought. If nothing else, the new proposal threatens to stir the hornet’s nest of national forest policy.

Why now? Why, 20 years after Judge Dwyer knocked some sense into the Forest Service’s head, does the Obama administration want to risk bringing controversy and acrimony back to our national forests? The proposed new rules do nothing to help thin overstocked stands or lessen wildfire risks. The Forest Service has been doing that job for more than a decade. Higher logging levels on our national forests might increase economic activity (if the demand for wood products also picks up), and a White House that puts job creation first might be tempted to let forest protection slide.

President Obama should leave well enough alone and let the 1982 forest protection rules stand. Sustainable jobs are not found by returning to the days of national forest overcutting.

Andy Stahl, a forester, is executive director of Eugene-based Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics.