Professor Mark Squillace, Director of the Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado Law School, who authored the previous post reviewing the proposed Rule linked to our blog here, sent along this link to a specific post on species viability.
Here’s the introduction:
The much-anticipated draft Forest Service land use planning rules were published in the Federal Register earlier this month. My initial thoughts on the entire document are posted here.
This entry is a focused look at what the Forest Service has to say about managing the “diversity of plant and animal communities,” and how that needs to change.
Overall, this section (proposed 36 CFR §219.9) warrants some substantial rethinking and clarification. The general intent behind this section seems appropriate. Efforts to maintain the diversity of native species, contribute to the recovery of threatened and endangered species, conserve candidate species, and maintain populations of “species of conservation concern” are all laudable goals.
Andy Stirling is Research Director for SPRU and co-directs the ESRC STEPS Centre at the University of Sussex. He has served on a number of science advisory bodies.
This quote is relevant to recent discussion between David Beebe and me here. It’s always a great discovery when others agree with you and they are also 20 x more articulate (plus have social legitimacy)! The entire post is well worth reading for its discussion of the science biz.
[T]he basic aspirational principles of science offer the best means to challenge the ubiquitously human distorting pressures of self-serving privilege, hubris, prejudice and power. Among these principles are exactly the scepticism and tolerance against which Beddington is railing (ironically) so emotionally! Of course, scientific practices like peer review, open publication and acknowledgement of uncertainty all help reinforce the positive impacts of these underlying qualities. But, in the real world, any rational observer has to note that these practices are themselves imperfect. Although rarely achieved, it is inspirational ideals of universal, communitarian scepticism—guided by progressive principles of reasoned argument, integrity, pluralism, openness and, of course, empirical experiment—that best embody the great civilising potential of science itself. As the motto of none other than the Royal Society loosely enjoins (also sometimes somewhat ironically) “take nothing on authority”. In this colourful instance of straight talking then, John Beddington is himself coming uncomfortably close to a particularly unsettling form of unscientific—even (in a deep sense) anti-scientific—’double speak’.
Anyone who really values the progressive civilising potential of science should argue (in a qualified way as here) against Beddington’s intemperate call for “complete intolerance” of scepticism. It is the social and human realities shared by politicians, non-government organisations, journalists and scientists themselves, that make tolerance of scepticism so important. The priorities pursued in scientific research and the directions taken by technology are all as fundamentally political as other areas of policy. No matter how uncomfortable and messy the resulting debates may sometimes become, we should never be cowed by any special interest—including that of scientific institutions—away from debating these issues in open, rational, democratic ways. To allow this to happen would be to undermine science itself in the most profound sense. It is the upholding of an often imperfect pursuit of scepticism and tolerance that offer the best way to respect and promote science. Such a position is, indeed, much more in keeping with the otherwise-exemplary work of John Beddington himself.
Jumbo Peak, Gifford Pinchot National Forest, photo by Tom Kogut
“What we leave on the land is more important than what we take away.” – Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth, 2002
“Narrowly defined desired future ecosystem conditions, particularly if they are historical conditions poorly aligned with the unprecedented future, will seldom provide useful targets for management intervention.” – Stephenson, Millar, and Cole In Beyond Naturalness, 2010
What’s the true value of a Forest Plan? Over the history of Forest Service planning, the answer has changed. Now it’s changing again – plans in the future will not be measured by the accuracy of their detailed descriptions of fixed “desired conditions”, but how robust and flexible the plans will be when dealing with uncertainty.
Of course, maybe the true value of planning was never what we thought. It may have simply been about drawing a map of the areas where activities could occur, and creating a certain level of accountability with the public about how the activities would be conducted. But the idea persists today that the central purpose of plans is to describe detailed “pictures” of our desired conditions, and the specific structure, composition and function of the necessary ecosystem elements.
What a history we’ve had! NFMA plans were originally conceived as essentially one big timber sale. During the Senate floor debate in 1976, Hubert Humphrey said that no project level NEPA documents would be required after a plan was completed. All the parts of the plan were equally important. That changed in 1990, when former Chief Dale Robertson began to assert that standards and guidelines were more important than objectives. Throughout the 1990s, we shifted our focus from the uses of the forest to the condition of the forest itself. While changing the NFMA planning rule, the 1999 Committee of Scientists described the purpose of forest planning as “outward looking, built upon assessments; grounded in current scientific understanding; collaborative in nature; and focused on desired future conditions.” Planners were told to concentrate on “what we leave on the land.”
Meanwhile, planning was requiring huge investments of time, and plans were being written with a few pages of goals and objectives followed by 100 or more pages of forest-wide or management-area-specific standards and guidelines. Good standards were difficult to write, because they required inventories of current conditions that weren’t available, understanding of changing technology, and the need for difficult projections about the level and intensity of likely future activities in the face of changing management priorities and changing conditions on-the-ground. It was difficult to set standards for things like old growth or riparian areas when we didn’t even know how many acres were out there.
So the 2005 and 2008 planning rules were written to make plans more strategic and vision oriented, like county comprehensive master plans, and less dependent upon prescriptive standards. The preamble to the 2008 planning rule explained that “plans are more effective if they include more detailed descriptions of desired conditions, rather than long lists of prohibitive standards or guidelines developed in an attempt to anticipate and address every possible future project or activity and the potential effects such projects could cause.”
But a funny thing happened when we started writing plans under the 2008 rule. Instead of 100 pages of standards and guidelines, we now had 100 pages of desired conditions. Rather than broad, strategic goals, descriptions of desired conditions were becoming specific, detailed, highly-parameterized descriptions of vegetation conditions: percent species composition, numbers of trees per acre, desired ranges of basal area, numbers of snags, etc. The idea was that detailed desired conditions could ease the burden on project planners in developing the “purpose and need” for projects. At the same time, these desired conditions writeups were suggested as a tool for “accountability”.
Meanwhile, we probably lost the idea that forest plans should be readily understood by the lay reader who treasures a forest. For many people, a forest is a place. It’s not a list of attributes.
But here’s the fundamental question about planning: Do National Forests change because of Forest Plans or in spite of Forest Plans? Can we really control nature? Is intensive end-oriented management possible everywhere? In the Rocky Mountain west, we work in fire-dominated ecosystems with very long fire-return intervals. We have seen huge swaths of trees dying of insects or disease. The rates of change are enormous, and for some forests, current FIA data doesn’t represent the current conditions on the ground. We are heavily influenced by severe storm events – intense snowstorms, rain on snow events, patterns of drought, summer floods, even tornadoes. There is no equilibrium condition. Our Forest Plan modeling shows dynamic, ever-changing forests. We have become focused on the types and rates of forest disturbances. At the scales we’re dealing with, it may not be possible to map a single desired condition, or even a reasonably understood “range of conditions”.
The dynamics of climate change create uncertainties at the scales we are working at. Connie Millar has said that “although DC statements may be written broadly (“habitat for species x exists in adequate amounts to maintain current populations”), equally often they emphasize limited views of the future, or very narrow ranges of conditions (“4-6 snags per acre”). This suggests that the possibility of multiple ecosystem pathways, unexpected events, major interactions among elements, and threshold events are not really accepted by managers or the public. DC statements that recognize ranges of outcomes and not just singular states as acceptable are more realistic.”
Florida State Law professor Robin Kundis Craig has argued for new types of plans and regulations because “Stationarity is Dead“: “we are moving into an era where ecological change might not be predictable and when external factors, positive feedbacks, or nonlinear instabilities in a system will cause changes to propagate in a domino-like fashion that is potentially irreversible. As land, air, and water temperatures generally increase, patterns of precipitation alter in terms of both amount and timing, and species shift as best they can to cope, “restoration” and even “sustainability” have the potential to become close to meaningless concepts. We are moving along an at least somewhat unpredictable path to an as yet unpredictable final destination.”
The planning problem is not just about natural forces – it’s also about societal changes. We are seeing new uses of National Forests, and more and more projects are proposed by somebody other than the Forest Service. For instance, how can we anticipate in advance what standards and guidelines apply to laying a new type of fiber-optic cable across a forest?
As explained in the business and public administration literature, the purpose of a strategic plan is to identify core strengths, intended roles and contributions, and a “vision” which can be a rallying point or goal to be achieved. A plan should be robust and flexible, so it can adapt to changing conditions, changing knowledge, and changing politics, while being consistent with the organization’s core strengths and vision. A highly detailed plan will detract from the day to day sensing necessary to manage the unexpected. As Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe state in their book Managing the Unexpected:
“A heavy investment in plans restricts sensing to expectations built into the plans and restricts responding to actions built into the existing repertoire. The result is a system that is less able to sense discrepancies, less able to update understanding and learn, and less able to recombine actions into new ways to handle the unexpected.”
Park Service scientists Robert Bennetts and Bruce Bingham have pointed out the reasons that it is highly difficult, if not impossible, for managers to achieve desired conditions, because of lack of information, lack of management control, unavoidable circumstances, and trade-offs based on societal values. They talk about the “punitive paradox”: managers aren’t going to report impaired conditions if they are being judged on the difference between existing and desired conditions. They conclude that desired conditions could be a useful scientific research question, but they don’t work as a management tool.
So where does this leave us? Actually, some of the answers have already been mentioned on this blog. There are some exciting planning techniques being implemented in the field. We’ve got the tools – let’s see what we can do.
This story is from the NY Times/Greenwire. It’s well thought out and touches on some topics that other news stories did not.
Here are a couple of quotes:
Forest Service officials say they want the rule to provide flexibility to account for varying local conditions. What is best for a forest in Alaska, for example, is likely to be different from what is needed in a Florida forest. They also want to make sure the new rule is simple enough that it can be easily implemented. One of the complaints from forest managers about the 1982 rule is that it was too complex, and the planning process takes too long as a result.
But Francis says simplicity should not come at the expense of effectiveness.
“It could be complicated, because we’re heading into somewhat unchartered waters, and we don’t know how climate change is going to affect things,” he said. “So you need the transparency and the accountability that we’re going to move in those directions [put forth in the rule]. That’s what the forest needs. Just because it’s hard and will require some tough decisions doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.”
and this..
Karen Hardigg, forest program manager for the Wilderness Society in Alaska, said if Tongass managers incorporate the new planning rule’s objectives into the forest’s management plan, it could help accelerate a shift away from old-growth logging to a more restoration-based economy.
“The emphasis on restoration and resiliency, on climate change, on collaboration — getting to shared priority-setting and preventing conflict — that could all be especially beneficial in southeast Alaska,” she said.
But like Francis, Hardigg believes the new rule leaves too much up to local forest managers. “We would have liked to have seen more solid direction. A little more teeth,” she said.
and
Its protections for wildlife are pretty weak,” said Jane Danowitz, public lands director for the Pew Environment Group. “There are some good aspects to the rule, but when it comes to a couple of key protections [for] wildlife and watersheds, they’re not strong and they tend to be left up to the discretion” of local forest managers, she added.
Michael Francis, national forest program director for the Wilderness Society says the new rule has a lot of good provisions, although he finds it long on vision but short on direction.
I wish the author of the piece has pressed those quoted to be more specific about what they wanted that they didn’t get. Those of us who are outside those “inside the Beltway” discussions would like to know. Is it as simple as “viability should be for all vertebrate species, and we don’t think the requirement for “maintaining or restoring ecosystem composition, structure and function” covers it because ____________”(fill in the blanks)?. Or do they actually want national standards of some kind?
Just as I was considering this, I found this story from the Courthouse News Service that indeed had more specifics.
“The administration appears to be looking to do the bare minimum for wildlife,” Defenders of Wildlife president Rodger Schlickeisen said in a statement.
The group, which was party to the lawsuits resulting in the California rulings, wanted the species viability standard reinstated and clear requirements for species monitoring.
Instead, the new rule eliminates use of management indicator species, and failed to include the species viability standard.
Earthjustice criticized the rule for lacking specific guidelines to protect streams and watersheds.
Environmentalists across the board say the rule gives agency managers too much leeway.
Marc Fink, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity – also a party in both California lawsuits – said the new plan eschews the viability requirement for a longer process in which forest supervisors determine species of concern.
Fink added that a new pre-decision objection process reduces public involvement and is step in the wrong direction.
“We’re concerned it would leave too much discretion to the forest service,” Fink said in an interview.
Fink thinks the Obama administration simply did not make the forest plan a priority, and instead of clamping down to assure specific protections, gave way for the agency to seek greater autonomy.
The Forest Service said the new plan’s flexible processes should reduce litigation. “We want to spend less time in the courts and more time in the forests,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said at a press conference.
The Associated Press reported that lawsuits to protect habitat for threatened and endangered species in past decades have slashed logging in National Forests by three-quarters from its peak.
But it’s false to assert that environmental litigation against logging projects is tying up taxpayer resources, Fink said.
“The data just doesn’t back them up,” Fink said, adding that only a small percentage of projects are litigated.
A Government Accountability Office report in 2010 found that only 2 percent of Forest Service fuel-reduction decisions end up in court. They are called “fuel-reduction” projects because their ostensible purpose is to reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfire.
But many environmentalists view that as a cover. They point out that if fuel reduction were truly the purpose, the projects would focus on brush and small trees, and not on mature trees that are valuable as timber.
Problems with the projects justified the challenges, Fink said, adding that legal victories have proven that the Forest Service historically abused its discretion.
“We need these meaningful sideboards and constraints so the public can act as watchdogs,” Fink said.
Although the Forest Service’s plan also emphasizes multiple uses, including recreation and resource use, preservation is intended to be its core.
“The heart of this planning rule is the requirement that we maintain and restore our forests,” USDA Undersecretary Harris Sherman said at the press conference.
There are plenty of good intentions in the regulations, Fink said, including a mention of climate change for the first time.
“But when you chip away the nice-sounding language, get to the shalls and shall nots, there’s not much left,” Fink said.
The public comment period for the plan ends in May; a final rule is expected around the end of the year.
If the Forest Service does not improve its draft rule, a legal challenge is “highly likely,” Fink said.
I guess as I go to my next litigation phone call, I’ll have to remember that my and my colleagues’ time (plus OGC, plus DOJ, plus the folks on the forest preparing the record) must not be defined as “taxpayer resources” because the GAO found that lawsuits are only filed on a small percentage of all projects.
Also, who knew that objections “reduced public involvement.” It seems like they increase public involvement because you end up talking to the objectors as well as others. What kind of “public involvement” is sending an appeal to DC for review, compared to sitting with the decisionmaker, their boss, and members of the public who are interested, to describe your concerns?
Also, the way to win friends and influence people is generally not considered to be threatening lawsuits if you don’t get your way. Just sayin’
Pete Nelson, of Defenders of Wildlife, provides his take on the wildlife provision in the draft planning rule. He doesn’t like it much….He wants a non-discretionary viability standard
I thought this was a great piece by Andrew Revkin on the cultural differences between scientific journals and communication to the press and the public. This is relevant to our world, as well as the world of climate change (yes, we are a part of that world). it is particularly relevant to those scientific disciplines which depend on models more than direct empirical observation.
Here’s some more on this on the Roger Pielke, Jr. blog.
SECOND UPDATE — The FS planning blog is working now.
UPDATE — The FS’s planning rule blog appears to be back on-line. Peter Williams ([email protected]) is moderating it. Still no comments from anyone on the new rule.
Thursday, 2/10, saw the Forest Service unroll its proposed new forest planning rule. The rule’s unveiling was featured on the FS’s homepage. Media from coast-to-coast covered the event. And the public was invited to comment on the new rule, including on the planning rule blog.
Previous blog posts had received anywhere from several to several dozen comments, so I expected the rule’s release to stimulate some vigorous debate.
By Tuesday, 2/15, not a single comment had been posted on the FS’s blog. What’s up with that, I wondered? So I posted a comment (well, re-posted something cynical I had already placed here).
Now I know the FS moderates its blog, just as NCFP does. But by day’s end, nothing had appeared. So I emailed the blog moderator. Got the following response:
I will be out of the office starting 02/13/2011 and will not return until
08/15/2011.
I’m on detail to CEQ through mid August. If you have questions about the
planning rule please contact Megan Wertz ([email protected]), Linda
Parker ([email protected]) or Martha Twarkins ([email protected]).
We really do want your comments . . . we’re just not home to receive them.
Mark Squillace, Director of the Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder, is quick out of the gate with a review of the draft rule:
If filmed, the Squillace trailer/teaser would begin with the voice of James Earl Jones: He sees “much to like about the new draft rules,” but notes that “there is also cause for concern.”
I have spent the weekend dealing with leadership issues in one of my volunteer organizations…so have been slow to respond to blog comments. I’m sure I’ll have something thoughtful to say about this experience, when it’s over, if it ever is…
Anyway, here’s a question from Bob Berwyn, editor of Summit County Citizen’s Voice and photographer par excellence. The photo above is his work.
IMHO we ought to be able to explain to a member of the public who is not a planning wonk “what’s goin’ on”.
Here’s the classic Marvin Gaye version of “What’s Goin’ On” for those of you for whom this reference seems unfamiliar.
Almost at the same time that I read the Forest Service press releases about the new draft forest planning rule, and even before I had a chance to click on all the links, I also had a couple of press releases from conservation and wildlife advocacy groups in my inbox, decrying the new rule as less protective of wildlife.
Sometimes, in my haste to “scoop” the local print newspaper, I rush into posting stories, using such press releases, combined with some of my own contextual understanding of the issue, to try and create something interesting for readers. I was tempted to do the same late last week, but decided against it. Instead, I posted a straightforward story about the release, along with the YouTube video (here it is,SF) , and the links straight off the Forest Service planning rule page, along with letting readers know that this is the start of another important public comment period and that there will be a meeting in Lakewood.
I figure there will be plenty of time to follow up and take a closer look at some of the particulars of the plan.
I did have a long conversation/interview with Andy Stahl, someone I’ve learned to trust over the years, knowing that he speaks from the watchdog perspective. I asked him what was different in this rule, and he zoomed in on the same issue – wildlife viability.
What I gathered from the combination of the press releases and the interview is that the new rule requires the Forest Service to carefully consider impacts to species listed as threatened or endangered, and to species of concern, but that it leaves a lot of loopholes (my word, not his) with regard to other species, or “common” species, as was posted here.
According to Andy, the 1982 version had a simple requirement to maintain the viability of all species. The new rule instead, sets a very high threshold … and relieves the Forest Service of any affirmative need to show that protection.
Andy brought the spotted owl into play and said that, ever since the spotted owl decision, the Forest Service has been trying to chip away at the viability provision.
So Friday, I tried to call the national Forest Service HQ to get some perspective from a Forest Service biologist. Couldn’t reach anyone in time, so Sharon suggested posing the question here on NCFP.
What I want is a FS biologist to explain how this new rule would be applied on the ground to protect viability of all species. I’m assuming it’s in the monitoring and assessment process, but what do I know?
I know there’s a lot more to the rule than this, but that’s what the conservation groups and wildlife advocates seem to be focusing on — Why is that?
Second question: How exactly does this rule give local forest officials more control? Can someone explain how the old rule was more centralized in Washington, D.C., as written in the Washington Post story?
Any feedback to help me explain all this my readers would be appreciated!
What is a forest plan? A committee of scientists once said that a forest plan is simply a loose-leaf compendium of all decisions large and small that affect the administration of a national forest. Following adaptive management principles and practices, “decisions” can and are made at multiple scales: international, national whether or not made by the US Forest Service, regional and local. So too with assessments, and monitoring and evaluation measures. All these are the workings of adaptive management (pdf), not planning . The whole of the Forest Service ought to be charged to work together to accomplish broad conservation, preservation, and use goals through adaptive management. Framing needs to be changed to do this. A central planning frame has failed for 30 years. Why continue down this path?
In an adaptive management frame, forest supervisors oversee the day-to-day workings of a national forest administrative unit. But decisions affecting that unit are made in various ways at various scales, whether as part of laws, policies, programs, or activities. There are no administrative “kings” in this worldview. Instead we have various actors, some within the Forest Service and some without, working in interrelated systems that frame the workings of a national forest. We have whole organizations working together to accomplish the work of adaptive management. The task is not left to “planning.”
Now let’s begin to parse the most recent “proposed rule” for developing a forest plan. Note first that the three levels of administrative decision-making outlined in the proposed rule — national, forest, project or activity — don’t fit the adaptive management model outlined above. Why does the Forest Service continue to pretend that managing a national forest comes down to three levels of decision-making? I can see no reason, beyond tradition for maintaining this hierarchy. Can you?
If the Forest Service is incapable of understanding adaptive management, is there any hope in trying to fit adaptive management into the Forest Service culture? After thirty years watching and attempting to participate in rule development for the RPA/NFMA I am once-again left to doubt whether any progress can be made.
Adaptive management is about organizations learning to adapt to ever changing environmental and social systems. Adaptive management is not about “planning.”
Perhaps I’m too old to dabble in this stuff anymore. Perhaps the “devil in the details” ought to be left to those younger. But I believe I’ve seen this same rhetoric before — since 1979 — and it appears, broadly speaking, pretty much the same to me. The Wilderness Society gives the proposed rule a B. I give it, once again, an F. The Forest Service simply doesn’t get adaptive management. The F is for failing to adequately frame the process, for “frame blindness” and other decision traps.
If I were a forest supervisor I would feel victimized by this (and earlier “planning rules”). Forest supervisors are asked to act as “forest kings,” not forest administrators. The Washington Office of the Forest Service does a disservice to both forest supervisors and regional foresters, as well as many in the so-called “staff” program areas of the Forest Service by continuing this tradition of laying it all at the feet of forest supervisors. We might as well call them “forest scapegoats” if this tradition continues. The Forest Service seems intent to continue its 30-year tradition of gridlock unless and until there is an awakening.
I will not comment here on the many process failings leading up to this proposed rule. I’ve done it before. Suffice it to say, despite many pleadings, the Forest Service once again gathered some input in the early stages, then went into the isolation booth to hatch a rule. It should surprise no one that it closely resembles earlier rules. No “real” blogs, no wikis, no true collaboration in rule development. Why not? Other government organizations use them. What we got instead was administrative politics as usual, with associated administrative gridlock.
It is likely too late to change this rule. Despite billing it as Draft, we all know that only minor tweaking will be allowed between Draft and Final Rule. It would be refreshing for the Forest Service to admit that it botched this effort. But American politics will not allow it. Too bad! Peter Drucker once remarked that one key measure of the worth of a decision is how rapidly it can be changed in light of new information. Would that the Forest Service could “see the light,” and change this rule.
