The Smokey Wire : National Forest News and Views
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Your responses to the post below on the San Gabriel and charging for some Fourteeners were intriguing, and the topic of how to fund recreation on the national forests seems worthy of more exploration. It seems to me that water and recreation could be argued to be the two most important services that national forests … Read more
“Better to be safe than sorry.” “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” “First do no harm.” “Fences are made for those who cannot fly.” “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Caution or boldness? What happens if doing nothing is worse? This is one of the debates emerging from the Forest Service planning rule … Read more
The last panel at the Science Forum talked about the latest thinking in how to do planning, bringing together the information from the first four panels. Clare Ryan from the University of Washington spoke about policy design and implementation, especially best science. (slides pdf) When thinking about policy, we think about policy goals contained in the policy … Read more
This afternoon, the second panel at the science forum addressed the technical questions of landscape scale modeling and monitoring, and the related question of adaptive management. Eric Gustafson of the Forest Service Northern Research Station started the panel by describing the merits of landscape models, which he called the “computational formalism of state-of-the-art knowledge.” (slides pdf) … Read more
The first panel of today’s science forum emphasized landscape scale planning across multiple ownerships. Tom Sisk from Northern Arizona University began with the word: “practical”. (slides pdf) The next 20 years of the science about landscape scale management will focus on transparency, inclusion, and public deliberation. We are learning to “scale up” our management because of our … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
Yesterday morning we visited the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to listen to the appeal of Judge Brimmer’s decision on the 2001 Rule. There were three judges presiding,Anderson, Murphy and Holmes. Since this is Women’s History Month, I have to point out that all the lead counsels, and all the judges were male. The ratio of female to … Read more
Contributed by Jim Burchfield, Interim Dean, College of Forestry and Conservation, University of Montana Beyond rulemaking, environmental analyses, and the myriad of necessary procedural steps, land management planning on National Forests will be well-served to adhere to fundamental principles. Planning strives to meet two interlocking objectives: (1) To create a more desirable future; and (2) … Read more
I agree with Jack Ward Thomas when he talked about “walking around the field of battle bayoneting the wounded” in, I think, this still relevant testimony from 2000. There are also some other relevant observations from this testimony for this planning rule discussion. 21st century planning is obviously tied to NFMA, but a challenge is … Read more