All’s Well on the Planning Front — Or is it?

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The year was 1995 (or thereabouts). I attended a Forest Service sponsored meeting on Strategic Planning at Grey Towers. I carried my brand new copy of Henry Mintzberg’s Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning to the meeting, referring to Mintzberg’s death-knell for planning whenever I could. (Here is a six-page summary pdf) A few souls agreed that Strategic Planning as envisioned by the NFMA regulation ought to have died even before Mintzberg penned his classic. But most in attendance were true soldiers from the Forest Service and a few other government agencies — looking only to do better at their assigned/accepted tasks.

Now it is 2010 and the Forest Service is once-again playing the Frame Game to make sure that the status quo planning frame is not upset too much. Or so it seems to me. As always, I hope I’m wrong. The game is to rewrite the regulatory “rule” for NFMA. If he Forest Service believes it to be a “planning rule” my guess it that the game is lost before it begins. To set a stage the Forest Service is hosting a bunch of so-called collaboration meetings. First out the chute, a Science Forum — a two-day gathering of “scientists” early this week. The outcome of the meeting will likely prove up my 1995 observation-warning that the Forest Service hadn’t (and hasn’t yet) learned its science lesson:

It is folly to assume that, “Science will find the answer,” as if science alone were the key to resolving social problems. Such thinking hasn’t been helpful to medical practitioners, engineers, even scientists when challenged to help explain the cultural mess we’ve gotten ourselves into relative to sustainability.

A framing question lingers: Why is the Forest Service once-again leading with science if the intent is to reframe policy and/or management?

On the heels of the Science Forum, the Forest Service will host three two-day sessions in Washington DC, and a series of one-day sessions in the hinterlands. Not enough time for thoughtful deliberation of what social mess (or wicked problem nest) the Forest Service is in, neither how it got there, neither how it might begin to move forward.

A framing question lingers: Why is the Forest Service once-again hosting a series of meetings to begin reframing the “rule”? Isn’t there any other way? Or is tradition rearing its head once again? Some of us have advocated for Blogs (internet discussion forums) to begin discussing serious policy matters and Wikis to actually write alternative versions of policy. (See, e.g. here.) But all, so far, is to no avail. We’ll see what will happen this time relatively soon. For now, though, let’s step back again in time.

The year was 2002. I began to preach the gospel of Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems (Buzz Holling’s intro to the Panarchy idea), following on the heels of Barriers and Bridges to the Renewal of Ecosystems and Institutions, The Politics of Ecosystem Management, Managing the Unexpected and a few other key books. (See: Collaboration Readings for Reflective Practitioners). I continued to do so until my retirement in 2007. Nobody, other than a few who blog here, seemed to care. Nobody seemed anxious to seek a different path. At least no one in power circles seemed to care.

Inevitably each new idea that emerged was transformed into “Planning”: assess, plan, act, evaluate, plan, …. Planning swallowed up adaptive management without a hiccup. Planning swallowed up Environmental Management Systems, or almost , again without a hiccup. (my 2005-2007 EMS blog) But it was pretense. Pretend adaptive management. Pretend collaboration. Nothing remotely real about it. Still, it suited the Forest Service bureaucracy well. It could be force-fit into the rigid straitjacket of the Manual/Handbook system. Nothing would change the planning juggernaut that was launched way back in 1979.

All could be pretended to be well. If only the damn enviros would just quit suing. After all the Forest Service was/is no longer rapaciously clearcutting. Never mind the mining/drilling interests, the grazers, the commercial recreation interests, etc. Never mind the suited men behind the curtains. Why can’t the enviros just settle in, kick back and enjoy (by 2009) the stimulus money that is being thrown thither and yon, some of it for so-called ecological restoration. Note: the reason the “rule” is once-again ‘in play’ is because some damn enviros sued and got the last one thrown out. (Personal admission: I am one of those ‘damn enviros’, and was long before retiring from the Forest Service.)

A framing question lingers: Did I fall into the ‘Good Will Hunting’ trap? Here is the trap in a nutshell: Badboy Will said to his psychiatrist, in essence: “You people baffle me. You spend all your money on these fancy books, you surround yourselves with ’em — and they’re the wrong fucking books.” (Great movie, btw)

Did I read the wrong books? If so, assuming that any power brokers in the Forest Service actually read, what books ought I to have been studying and preaching from. And if ideas, visions, and paths forward are not to have come from books, what ought I to have been looking for smoking?

Just a few Sunday thoughts to ponder while awaiting the meetings, and the posts that will flow here and in the official FS nonblog.

Panelists for the Science Forum

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The series of public meetings on the planning rulemaking process starts with a science forum next Monday and Tuesday (March 29-30) in Washington D.C.  The draft agenda has five panels over the two day event.   The event will be webcast.  Here is information on the panels and panelists with their web links.  The panels are a mix of academia and Forest Service researchers, private consultants and non-governmental organizations.

Panel 1: Drivers of Ecosystems  This panel will discuss the ecological processes that function at the landscape scale across multiple ownerships and suggest ways that the planning rule might better consider these processes. 

Tom Sisk – Topic: Landscape Ecology and Land Use Patterns

Tom Sisk is Director of the Lab of Landscape Ecology and Conservation Biology at Northern Arizona Univ.  His areas of research interest and expertise include ecology, conservation biology, landscape design; land use and environmental policy; collaborative management and democratic process in land and resource management, and; biocultural conservation on the Colorado Plateau and across western North America.

Jim Vose – Topic: Watershed Science

 Jim Vose is Project Leader of the Forest Service Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in Otto, NC. His current research emphasis has been on phytoremediation of groundwater pollutants, riparian zone restoration, forest carbon, nutrient, and water cycling, modeling of biological systems, fire ecology and restoration of fire dependent ecosystems, old-growth structure and function.

Connie Millar – Topic: Climate Change and Forest Ecosystems 

 Connie Millar is a Research Paleoecologist at the Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station. Her research interest is the integration of science with policy at the ecoregional and interdisciplinary scale. She is especially interested in communicating and interpreting current research on climate change and its ecological effects in conservation and restoration contexts.

Max Moritz – Topic: Fire

 Max Moritz is a Cooperative Extension Specialist and a wildland fire expert at UC Berkeley.  Much of his research is focused on understanding the dynamics of fire regimes at relatively broad scales and using this information in ecosystem management. He employs quantitative analyses of fire history, examining the relative importance of different mechanisms that drive fire patterns on the landscape. Also he is interested in simulation of fire dynamics, using spatially-explicit models of fire spread and vegetation regrowth.

Panel 2: Panelists will discuss current science as it relates to planning, managing, monitoring, and adapting at the landscape scale and explore ways that a planning rule could address these topics.

Eric Gustafson – Topic: Projecting Impacts of Management Alternatives

  Eric Gustafson is a Forest Service Project Leader and Research Landscape Ecologist at the Institute for Applied Ecosystem Studies. His current research focuses on timber harvest simulation (HARVEST), which allows scientists to simulate timber management strategies in a spatially explicit manner through time. He uses HARVEST to study the cumulative effects of the various objectives of multiple landowners across an entire landscape.  He helped develop the LANDIS forest succession and disturbance model, and he is working with other scientists to study the interactions among human and natural disturbances to determine the risk of wildfire within large landscapes. 

Steve McNulty – Topic: Water and Climate Change at the Landscape Level

 Steve McNulty is a Forest Service Research Ecologist with the Southern Research Station. His current research includes regional to continental scale forest modeling including forest hydrology, productivity, resource economics, and wildlife and forest diversity. Emphasis is given to model interactions and response of forests to global climate change and other environmental stresses including ozone, nitrogen deposition, and atmospheric CO2.Other research includes the influence of forest management practices on forest hydrology, productivity, and spatially explicit soil erosion.

B. Ken Williams  – Topic: Adaptive Management

Ken Williams is the Chief of the USGS Cooperative Research Units.  He is an author of numerous publications on analysis and management of animal populations and conservation and on adaptive management. 

Sam Cushman – Topic: Quantitative Landscape Ecology

 

Sam Cushman is a Forest Service Research Landscape Ecologist with the Forest and Woodlands Ecosystems Program at the Rocky Mountain Research Station. His current research includes integrated landscape modeling, biological diversity, and quantitative ecology.

Panel 3:  Panelists will talk about the current science behind planning for, managing to maintain and restore, and monitoring plant and animal diversity.

Kevin McKelvey –  Topic: Quantification of Diversity

 Kevin McKelvey is a Forest Service Monitoring and Disturbance Ecology Team Leader with the Wildlife Ecology Research Unit at the Rocky Mountain Research Station.  Recent focus is on developing methods to evaluate status and trends of organisms across broad spatial and temporal domains. This includes methods to non-invasively survey fisher, marten, cougar, and Canada lynx. Because many population metrics are extremely sensitive to genotyping errors his team has developed cost effective methods to remove errors from genetic samples.

Marilyn Stoll – Topic: Endangered Species

 Marilyn Stoll is a Senior Biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service Everglades Restoration Program. She provides technical advice to DOI leadership on Endangered Species Act compliance, Fish and Water Coordination Act activities, Clean Water Act compliance and Migratory Bird Treaty Act action.  Previously she served as a supervisory biologist in FWS in Florida managing Everglades Restoration projects and in Washington (state) as the supervisory team lead for FWS on the Northwest Forest Plan (Olympic Penninsula and Washington Cascades Teams).  She has worked for USDA Forest Service NFS, International Programs, and R&D on projects like FEMAT, Spotted Owl, Fisher, and Puerto Rican parrot.

Gary Morishima – Topic: All Lands Approach to Maintaining Diversity

 Gary Morishima is CEO of his natural resources consulting firm, MORI-ko LLC, since 1969,  which specializes in providing consulting services to Indian tribes, government agencies, and private industry in areas pertaining to computer simulation of natural resource management systems, statistical analysis, forestry, and fisheries management.  He has been a technical advisor to the Quinault Nation for more than 30 years.   His areas of study and expertise include fisheries population dynamics, operations research, resource economics, numerical analysis, and mathematical statistics.  He was appointed to the Intergovernmental Advisory Council by the US Secretary of Agriculture to provide advice regarding implementation of the Northwest Forest Plan and to the Salmon and Steelhead Advisory Commission by the Secretary of Commerce.  He has served on several other commissions and task forces related to fisheries, tribal economics, and state government. 

Bill Zielinski  -Topic: Science principles for maintaining diversity

  (photo of pacific fisher)

Bill Zielinski is a Forest Service Research Ecologist at the Pacific Southwest Research Station.   He conducts research on maintaining faunal diversity in forested ecosystems of the coastal and intermountain west.  His research focuses on rare forest species such as wolverine, lynx, fisher and pine marten, and he has published many papers on the wolverines, fishers, pine marten and lynx. 

Panel 4:  Panelists will look at the relationship among social, cultural, and economic sustainability and explore how planning for national forest management should address these dimensions.

Mike Dockry – Topic: Sustainable management of natural resources

 Mike Dockry is a Forest Service Liaison to the College of Menominee Nation Sustainable Development Institute. He works with the Sustainable Development Institute to facilitate sustainable forestry research, education, policy analysis, and technical assistance, and represents five Forest Service Units, Forest Products Laboratory, North Central Research Station, North East Research Station, Northeast Area State and Private Forestry, and Region 9 of the National Forest System. 

Roger Sedjo – Topic: Ecosystem Services

 Roger Sedjo is a senior fellow and the director of Resources for the Future’s forest economics and policy program. He was on the 1999 planning rule Committee of Scientists.  His research interests include forests and global environmental problems; climate change and biodiversity; public lands issues; long-term sustainability of forests; industrial forestry and demand; timber supply modeling; international forestry; global forest trade; forest biotechnology; and land use change. He has written or edited 14 books related to forestry and natural resources.  He has co-chaired the committee of authors who wrote the chapter on biological sinks for the International Panel on Climate Change’s Third Assessment Report on climate change mitigation through forestry and other land use measures.

Randall Wilson – Topic: Socioeconomic context to management of National Forests

 

Randall Wilson is an associate professor of environmental studies at Gettysburg College.  His teaching and research interests focus on the intersection of nature and society.  His recent research has examined community-based resource management as practiced on national forests in the western US as well as studies of the impacts of sprawl in rural Pennsylvania.

Spencer Phillips – Topic: Balancing recreation carrying capacity and ecosystem health

 Spencer Phillips is Vice President for Ecology & Economics Research at the Wilderness Society.  He is a natural resource economist who has been with The Wilderness Society’s scientific team since 1992. His economic work has focused on helping people, communities and institutions realize the benefits of wildland conservation, and he oversees  TWS’ economic, ecological, landscape analysis and resource policy research.

Panel 5:  Panelists will explore how the current science discussed during the four other panels can be brought forward into the rule-writing process to produce a planning rule that is durable, widely-supported, and can be implemented on the ground in a timely way.

Clare Ryan – Topic: Rule process to incorporate the best science

 

Clare Ryan is an Associate Professor in Natural Resource Policy and Conflict Management at the University of Washington. Her research includes natural resource policy formulation and implementation, environmental conflict management, collaborative processes, water resource policy and management, urban ecology, participant roles in collaborative decision-making processes, adaptive management in the United States and Canada, and collaborative watershed planning in Washington and Oregon.

Martin Nie – Topic: Place-based planning and adaptive management

 

Martin Nie, one of the cohosts of this blog, is an associate professor of natural resource policy at University of Montana.  His research involves environmental and natural resources policy, law and administration, with a particular focus on environmental conflict and governance—the political institutions and decision making processes used to handle difficult policy problems.

Tony Cheng  – Topic: Ecologically integrated forest planning

 

Tony Cheng is an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Forest, Rangeland, and Watershed Stewardship at Colorado State University. Cheng received his Ph.D. in Forest Resource Policy from Oregon State University.  His current interest is in local institutional arrangements and participatory decision processes that address linked forest land management and community development and well-being issues. He is particularly interested in: participatory, collaborative planning and implementation approaches; the inter-relationship between governmental, non-profit, and for-profit organizations as emergent institutional arrangements, and; the interplay between local institutional arrangements and national policy.

Chris Liggett – Topic: Tools for forest plan development

 

Chris Liggett is the Planning Director in the Forest Service Southern Region.

Mike Harper – Topic: All lands approach to planning

 Mike Harper is a member of  the National Association of County Planners, currently acting as Treasurer.  Recently he retired as the Advanced Planning Program Planning Manager of the Washoe County Department of Community Development in Reno, Nevada. He worked for Washoe County for over 29 years, holding a number of management positions: Special Projects Manager (Community Development Department), Assistant Director (Comprehensive Planning Department), Director (Development Review Department). He served in leadership positions in many of the professional organizations to which he belongs. He was President of the Nevada Chapter of the American Planning Association, Commissioner on the AICP Commission, and President of the Sierra Nevada Chapter, American Society for Public Administration. He is currently the Nevada Chapter, APA, representative to the Western Planning Resources, Inc. (and a member of the executive board); a member of the site review team pool for the Planning Accreditation Board; and Treasurer of the County Planning Division, APA.

Monitoring Paper from Lindemayer and Likens- Practitioner Stamp of Approval

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When I read an academic paper that describes the world as we practitioners know it and propose practical situations, it’s an award-worthy thing.

Here is a great (in my opinion) review paper Lindenmayer&Likens2010.Science&ApplicationEcologicalMonitoring that resonates with some of my simplistic comments about how we approach viability in the post below.

Here’s some of my favorite quotes from the paper- what are yours?

5.4. Squabbles about what to monitor
An alternative response by some workers to the ‘‘laundry-list” approach has been to argue that ‘‘indicator species” or ‘‘indicator groups” should be the targets of monitoring programs (Andersen and Majer, 2004; Cantarello and Newton, 2008; Dung and Webb, 2008; McLaren et al., 1998; Sparrow et al., 1994; Spellerberg, 1994; Woodward et al., 1999). Many would argue that the group of organisms they study is special and any valid monitoring program cannot proceed without including them. We have found that over 55 major taxonomic groups have been proposed as indicators for monitoring programs, ranging from viruses and fungi and bryophytes to invertebrates and virtually all major vertebrate groups.
We found that only very rarely was it explicitly stated: (1) what these species or groups were actually indicative of, particularly at the ecosystem level and (2) the circumstances where these species or groups were or were not appropriate indicators. We believe that the problems of ‘‘laundry lists” and indicator species can be avoided by carefully crafting questions at the onset of a monitoring program, using a well-conceived model to help conceptualize a particular ecosystem and make predictions about ecosystem behaviour and response (see below). These key steps will help identify those entities most appropriate for monitoring.

I have sat through some very painful laundry list and “you should monitor them because I who have studied them for thirty years say that they are critical to the ecosystem” kinds of discussions. Here’s to clarity about why you want to monitor things, and why you think they are more important than other things you could be monitoring!

True collaborative partnerships are also essential because policy-makers and resource managers will often not know how to
frame questions in ways that can be resolved by well-executed monitoring, or may initially pose too many questions without prioritizing them. They also may have unreasonable expectations about what questions or problems can and cannot be solved by scientific projects and how much effective monitoring can cost. Thus, policy-makers need to understand better the scientific approach and the importance of posing the right questions in the correct way. Conversely, scientists need to articulate better what kinds of questions they can and cannot answer. They also need to understand
better the complexity of the policy process (Clark, 2002;Pielke, 2007). Scientists will often not fully comprehend the kinds
of key problems faced by policy-makers and resource managers that need to be addressed by long-term monitoring (Russell-Smith et al., 2003). Nor will scientists necessarily be fully aware of the policy options and the range of on-ground, management interventions available for testing and monitoring in a particular ecosystem (Walters, 1986).

And, eerily similar to the earmark idea:

Access to funding is an obvious factor influencing the success of monitoring programs. Many aspects of funding are not well suited to the establishment and maintenance of such programs. Monitoring programs are often seen as a luxury and not core for many resource management organizations. They are therefore usually the last initiatives to be funded and the first ones to be cut during budget shortfalls. In addition, budget cycles emphasize short-term projects
with rapid achievement of milestones. Funding initiatives of 1–3 years are rarely congruent with the timeframes appropriate
for effective monitoring. Thus, there often is a fundamental mismatch between long-term environmental management aspirations and short-term financial realities. We believe funding models based on endowments may be useful to circumvent problems associated with short-term funding problems. An outstanding example is the 175-year research program at Rothamsted in England (Rothamsted Research, 2006).

Climate Resilience- Let’s Not Overthink This

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Those of you who read this blog, know that I am a big fan of TU’s approach to climate change Protect, Reconnect, Restore, Sustain. It’s on the front page of their website here. It seems to me like these are the basics of leaving the land in the best condition to respond to climate change as well as other stressors. We basically have a chance to refocus on what we should have been doing all along; good land management, adaptive management with adaptive governance.

For the discussions in the next few weeks, I think it is important that we have an idea of what we mean by climate resilience or ecosystem resilience, which may be two different things. For one thing, climate will require resilient social as well as ecosystems. There is an opportunity for us to become entangled in a verbal jungle from which we may never emerge. So we asked University of Montana graduate student Matt Ehrman to take a look at the different definitions and see how much definitional diversity there is; and if there is diversity in just the definitions of resilience compared to activities designed to promote climate compared to ecosystem resilience.”

Here is a link to the paper Climate Resilience<. He summarizes:

The second principle in the forest planning rule’s NOI asks the public to consider whether plans could proactively address climate change through a series of measures, such as “[management] will need to restore ecosystem resiliency, and also factor adaptation and mitigation strategies into planning and project development.” The new planning rule should go a step further and offer a clear definition of resilience. It should also seek to identify the USFS value or resource that should be managed for resilience, in addition to what it is to be resilient to. The inherent ambiguity in the term “climate resilience” could pose problems for the USFS as it drafts forest plans under a planning rule that does not explicitly define climate resilience as ecosystem resilience to climate change.

Thoughts? How far along the simplicity spectrum do you want to be?

Ecosystem Services: The New Multiple-Use Idea

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So what’s the value of a forest?

In a previous post, I described the shift away from the Forest Service’s multiple-use mission to a sustainable ecosystem mission.  Many public stakeholders are confused by this shift, including those that rely on forest uses and services.  The same is true for Forest Service employees trained in multiple-use management.  Often, it’s about having a voice, or being able to clearly articulate these viewpoints, as the dialogue shifts toward concepts such as resilience, ecosystem integrity, ecological function, restoration of degraded ecosystems, etc.  As an example of this new framework, see the interim directive FSM 2020-2008-1, intended as a “foundational policy” for all restoration activities. 

In the shorthand about sustainability, we sometimes forget the reason we want to achieve sustainable management.  In Forest Plans, we talk about desired conditions, but we don’t describe why they are desired. 

The interim FSM 2020 explains the reason for ecological restoration and maintenance of resilience:  “to provide a broad range of ecosystem services.” 

It really isn’t much of a leap at all to move from the idea of multiple-uses to the idea of multiple-services.  The 1960 Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act itself explains that multiple use results in both products and services.  The idea of ecosystem services draws on these concepts, and extends the idea by attempting to categorize all of the benefits.   In particular, one framework getting attention was developed for the worldwide U.N. Millenium Ecosystem Assessment.  It divides services into four categories:

1. The provisioning “uses”, including those mentioned in the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act: timber and grazing. 

2  The cultural services, including recreation.  It would also include things like historical and heritage appreciation, and the experiences people have in the forest that create feelings of solitude or aesthetic appreciation.  The diversity of wildlife could fall into this category also.

3. The regulating services, including streamflow or flood control, alteration of fire, and influence on climate.  The role of wildlife species in ecological processes is also important.

4.  The supporting services for the other three categories, like soil formation and retention, or production of atmospheric oxygen.

Based on the Farm Bill, the Department of Agriculture has established an office for ecosystem services, now called the Office of Environmental Markets, to explore the development of markets.  For Forest Service planners who suffered through the economic requirements of the 1982 planning rule, this is a bit scary.  The same type of linear programming models used in forest planning to maximize sustained yield of timber are now being used to maximize carbon storage.  Economists are working on ways to value services.  We should encourage qualitative descriptions of services.  The director of the office, Sally Collins, advised a slow-cautious approach to these issues in a 2007 speech:

Resist the impulse to jump on the ecosystem services bandwagon in response to the Forestry Blues—but also resist the impulse to dismiss it as the latest in a series of attempts to redefine forestry. It is what it is, and forestry in America and the world is what it is.

The idea of ecosystem services was introduced in the December 18 Federal Register notice for a new planning rule.  This may be a chance for the Forest Service to embrace its multiple-use roots while articulating the importance of intact, functioning ecosystems.

The RPA/NFMA/NFMA: Solution to a Nonexistent Problem- R.W Behan

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A wise colleague suggested that it might be time again to take a look at this article from the May 1990 Journal of Forestry. Here are some quotes from the paper:

Planning has literally become an end in itself, with a large…interest group.. dedicated to its continuation

The National Forest Management Act is indeed an elegant solution to a nonexistent problem.

Thanks again to the Society of American Foresters for allowing us to post this paper on our blog.
Also note that it was originally published in Western Wildlands, a publication of our friends at the University of Montana.

Circling on the Diversity Rotary

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A while back, I obtained a copy of Wilkinson and Anderson’s book ” Land and Resource Planning in the National Forests” (1987) from the library. It had to go back today, which caused me to write about stuckness, rather than any conclusions.

So I’ll describe where I keep circling, and a possible exit off the rotary.

The rotary. In this post, Andy quoted Judge Dwyer:

Here’s what Judge Dwyer had to say on the subject:

When the [NFMA’s diversity] section is read in light of the historical context and overall purposes of the NFMA, as well as the legislative history of the section, it is evident that section 6(g)(3)(B) requires Forest Service planners to treat the wildlife resource as a controlling, co-equal factor in forest management and, in particular, as a substantive limitation on timber production.

The Ninth Circuit sustained Judge Dwyer on appeal.

Reading and rereading that part of the Wilkinson and Anderson book, I couldn’t get there from here. John tells me Judge Dwyer actually quoted the book. However, I don’t necessarily see that, with all due respect to both Judge Dwyer and the Ninth Circuit.

I was stuck. Finally I saw a footnote on page 170- a quote from Chief Max Peterson.

“If one thought emerges from reading this diversity paragraph over and over again, is that it is not very specific , and therefore leaves much room for judgment. The law does not provide detailed direction ; certainly it contains no definition of diversity, nor an indication of how much diversity is required,, it does not say that whatever diversity is there now must be kept . With proper justification, and to meet multiple use objectives, diversity could be altered or even reduced.”

That is exactly the conclusion I came to. It is interesting that these points of view could be so different- and one became enshrined in law and not the other.

Here’s another quote from the book from page 173:

To summarize, section 6(g)(3)(B) has three complementary meanings in the context of timber planning. First it is a general mandate to bring timber production into balance with wildlife and ecological values. Second it limits the use of forest conversion to cases where the conversion can be justified by its benefit to non-timber resources. Third, it prohibits monoculture. These three elements, when taken together, require the Forest Service to look at the forest as an ecological whole an to ensure that, over time, the forest is not converted to a tree farm.”

This suggests some kind of balance between timber production and other values. Is this different from “to treat the wildlife resource as a controlling, co-equal factor in forest management and, in particular, as a substantive limitation on timber production?” It seems to me that balance and “controlling co-equal” are a bit different. Anyway, my meditation on these concepts and rereading this section reminded me of how much the world was different then; of how, as Andy says, it was really all about timber. It is so unlike the world of today. I wonder if NFMA itself has value anymore or it was ultimately a creature of its time. Should it be put gently to rest?

A possible exit from the rotary.. what can we do pragmatically?

Like Max (as I recall, the first Chief who was an engineer), I am ultimately pragmatic. People, and more importantly regulatory agencies, seem to like standards. If the 2005 Rule experience proved anything, it proved that. One of my colleagues told me that in his view the utility of forest plan standards is that interdisciplinary teams don’t have to re-open all the same issues for every project. This does seems useful; but I have to wonder if this couldn’t be more flexible..say a GIS layer of what standards apply and they are developed across forests- so that the old plans don’t have old-fangled standards and newer ones newer-fangled standards, and none of them kept up-to-date with current information. We have a Watershed Conservation Practice Handbook that attempts to deal with that, but some people miss the legal NFMA hook.

K.I.S.S. in Rule Form, Part 3

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In an agency beset with feelings of process predicament and analysis paralysis, it would be cruel punishment indeed to suggest NFMA rules that add more analysis and process to the mix. The new rules should also be durable; that is, not chase after every cause de jour (e.g., climate change) or impose inflexible, one-size-fits-all analysis processes.

The following “Assessment of New Information and Changed Circumstances” is based on the fact that forest plans exist now that cover every acre of the National Forest System. Congress directed that these plans “be revised from time to time” when “conditions in a unit have significantly changed, but at least every fifteen years.” It makes sense that only those parts of a forest plan affected by changed conditions require revision.

It is with these principles in mind that I put forward Part 3 of the keep-it-simple-sweet NFMA rules:

36 CFR 219.3: Assessment of New Information and Changed Circumstances

The revision shall assess new information and changed circumstances and conditions in the unit that are relevant to the decisions made in the land management plan. If the new information or changed circumstances and conditions warrant amendments to the land management plan, the land management plan amendments shall be assessed as a part of the vegetation management and timber harvest program’s NEPA document. If the land management plan amendments, singly or in combination with the vegetation management and timber harvest program, require an environmental impact statement pursuant to Section 102(2)(C) of the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”), 42 U.S.C. § 4321 et seq., an environmental impact statement shall be prepared.

An Adaptive Governance Structure Round-up

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Right now we have two possibly complementary approaches being discussed on this blog; which I will call Doing Useful Things and Satisfying NFMA Requirements (Andy’s KISS approach). Adaptive Governance probably falls in the former category.

I am sold on the concept of some form of adaptive governance, and so would like to explore some questions around “how would it work?” This post is about the structure.

When we think of adaptive governance, we may be thinking of something informal, as Dave described in his recent comment

Many years ago on the Boise NF we got a forest planning group of collaborators together for a one-time meeting to set a stage for followup meetings. The Boise NF sup told the various groups that if they (as an independent/interdependent group) called subsequent meetings, then the FS would most-likely attend. He also told them that if any consensus were to develop (across a very wide distribution of interest groups, state and local gov interests, etc.) that the FS would find it hard to do something other than try to follow the lead of the group. The Sup. also made the forest plan ID team available to the group.

I immediately thought of more formal approaches, such as the FACA committee approach, used in RACs, the Black Hills National Forest Advisory Committee, the RACNAC and so on (in my post here). Then there are the Cooperators committees, who work on forest plans, who are elected officials and other government folks. Easier to organize, but not so broad-based. If formal collaboration is important, perhaps it would be useful to streamline the process to develop FACA committees. At least in the past, committee members had to be reviewed by the Administration (the Office of White House Liaison). FACA committees can either be long term (BHNFAB) or for a particular purpose (RACNAC).

Another interesting approach, possibly better for a particular one-time purpose, was the approach of the Colorado Roadless Taskforce. It was developed by state legislation

(4) The task force shall consist of:
(a) The executive director of the department of natural resources or the executive director’s designee, who shall convene and chair the task force and who is authorized to contract with a mediator or other third party to facilitate accomplishment of the task force’s duties;
(b) Four members appointed by the governor;
(c) Two members appointed by the speaker of the house of representatives;
(d) Two members appointed by the president of the senate;
(e) One member appointed by the chair of the house agriculture, livestock, and natural resources committee;
(f) One member appointed by the chair of the senate agriculture, natural resources, and energy committee; and
(g) Two members appointed by mutual agreement and consent of the governor, the speaker of the house of representatives, and the president of the senate.

Of course, this approach is only bipartisan as long as the House, Senate and Governor are somehow split between the parties. If that were not the case, the concept could be tweaked to have one person determined by the majority lead and the minority lead for each category. What I thought was interesting were the people who needed to be agreed upon cross parties- what does it take to be recognized across interests as having a valuable perspective? Whatever that is, we probably need more of it, in our sometimes unnecessarily partisan world. This approach was not as formal about the different interests to be represented as some of the FACA committees (one of this interest group and one of that interest group), but through coordination most of the important interests were represented. Another interesting things is that it is an expressly political approach; it’s not by interest, or by scientific discipline.

This was a state-wide deliberative body, and many of the folks are still working together on various issues- as they were before the Taskforce. So the relational piece is there, possibly to a greater extent than a national advisory group.

As Lynn said in her comment here, I think working on explicitly characterizing and understanding the relationships between local and state governments as part of the planning process is important, especially if we are to make good on some kind of “all lands approach.”

So the above are groups developing and implementing plans and policies. As Lynn says in her post here, there may also be a need for a mediation group to take disagreements with those plans and policies before litigation. I like her idea of the Federal Reserve Board as a model.

What other structures have you seen? How have they worked?

K.I.S.S. in Rule Form, Part 2

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Now for some nitty-gritty. Here’s language that fleshes out the first task of plan revision: “(1) Decide the vegetation management and timber harvest program, including the proportion of probable methods of tree removal.”

Most of the proposed rule is taken verbatim from the NFMA itself. The biggest change from the status quo is that vegetation management decisions would be made in the forest plan revision and not revisited in a second project-level decision and associated NEPA review. The proposed rule includes a strong incentive for doing so — it eliminates the site-specific notice, comment and appeals process for vegetation management/timber harvest activities. That’s because the forest plan revision would now make these site-specific decisions.

The vegetation management and timber harvest program component of forest plans would be revised more frequently (every 1 to 3 years) because the program makes site-specific decisions. But with only one NEPA document for each plan revision, this proposal would reduce by 90% (my guesstimate) the Forest Service’s vegetation-related NEPA document production.

36 CFR 219.2: Vegetation Management and Timber Harvest Program.

(a) The vegetation management and timber harvest program (“program”) shall include all site-specific vegetation management activities, including the sale of timber, purchase of vegetation management services by stewardship or other contractual method, and fire use necessary to meet the plan’s goals and objectives for a period of one to three years. An environmental impact statement shall be prepared for the program, if required by Section 102(2)(C) of the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”), 42 U.S.C. § 4321 et seq. The program can be amended at any time. All amendments shall comply with NEPA procedures.

(b) A vegetation management activity included in the program shall not be subject to the notice, comment or appeal requirements of the Forest Service Decisionmaking and Appeals Reform Act, 16 U.S.C. 1612 (notes), but shall be subject to the objection procedures contained in this subpart.

(c) Program activities shall be conducted only on lands suitable for the activity.

(d) Program activities shall maintain viable populations of existing native and desired non-native species in the planning area.

(e) Program activities shall be consistent with the plan’s standards and guidelines, or the standard or guideline shall be revised pursuant to this subsection.

(f) Before stands of trees are harvested, the stand’s average annual growth shall have culminated calculated on the basis of cubic measurement or other method at the discretion of the responsible official. Stands can be thinned before growth has culminated. Salvage or sanitation harvesting of timber stands that are substantially damaged by fire, windthrow or other catastrophe, or that are in imminent danger from insect or disease attack, can be harvested before growth has culminated.

(g) Timber will not be harvested where soil, slope, or other watershed conditions will be irreversibly damaged.

(h) Timber will not be harvested where adequate restocking within five years is not assured.

(i) Timber will not be harvested where water conditions or fish habitat are likely to be seriously and adversely affected by detrimental changes in water temperatures, blockages of water courses, or deposits of sediments.

(j) The timber harvest system will be selected based upon meeting the plan’s goals and objectives and not primarily upon the greatest dollar return or the greatest unit of output of timber.

(k) Timber harvest designed to regenerate an even-aged stand of timber will be used only where:

(1) For clearcutting it is the optimum method to meet the plan’s goals and objectives;

(2) For other even-aged methods it is appropriate to meet the plan’s goals and objectives;

(3) The harvest activity is included in the program and has been assessed pursuant to this subpart;

(4) Cut blocks, patches, or strips are shaped and blended to the extent practicable with the natural terrain;

(5) The area to be cut in one harvest operation (e.g., one cut block) does not exceed the maximum size limit established by the land management plan. If the plan has no maximum size limits, even-aged harvest cannot proceed until the plan is revised to include maximum size limits. Maximum size limits may be exceeded after public notice and review by the responsible Forest Service officer one level above the Forest Service officer who normally would approve the harvest activity. Maximum size limits shall not apply to the size of areas harvested as a result of natural catastrophic conditions such as fire, insect and disease attack, or windstorm; and,

(6) The even-aged harvest protects soil, watershed, fish, wildlife, recreation, and esthetic resources, and assures the regeneration of trees.