Emerald Ash Borer Sighted in Oregon: Be on the Lookout!

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Altenhoff said there are a fair number of ash trees in city parking lots and parks.
Courtesy of Oregon Department Of Forestry

I know many TSW-ites are from the Northwest so here goes:

Destructive forest pest, the emerald ash borer, arrives in Oregon; public asked to report sightings

FOREST GROVE, Ore – On June 30, Dominic Maze, an invasive species biologist for the City of Portland, was waiting outside a summer camp in Forest Grove to pick up his children when he noticed several ash trees in decline.

When he took a closer look, he recognized the distinctive D-shaped holes made by adult emerald ash borers, an invasive and destructive pest, as they exit an infested tree.

“When my kids arrived, I asked them to look for adult beetles,” said Maze. “My son promptly found one crawling on him. Knowing how many millions of ash trees across the country these beetles have killed, I felt like I was going to throw up.”

Maze’s discovery of EAB in a parking lot in Forest Grove is the first known sighting on the West Coast. Maze was familiar with EAB and signs of it in ash trees through educational materials federal and state agencies have been providing to Portland and other Oregon cities. He immediately called the Oregon Department of Forestry’s Forest Health Unit to report the EAB sighting.

ODF Forest Entomologist Christine Buhl drove to the site that same day and identified an adult EAB, known for their metallic, shiny green color. She then alerted the Oregon Department of Agriculture. Her identification was verified later by two additional invasive species specialists – Max Ragozzino with ODA and Wyatt Williams with ODF.

State officials are asking the public to learn what an emerald ash borer looks like and to report any sightings online at the Oregon Invasive Species Council hotline. This will help the state know how far and how fast this destructive insect is spreading in Oregon.

EAB is native to eastern Asia and has spread to about three dozen states since its first detection in Michigan two decades ago. EAB is now considered the most destructive forest pest in North America. Although harmless to people, pets, and animals, it has proven deadly to all ash species in North American and Europe, including the native Oregon ash (Fraxinus latifolia). EAB can also infest American fringe trees (Chionanthus virginicus) and European olive trees.

The infested ash trees in Forest Grove were cut down and chipped within 48 hours of discovery. ODF and ODA are now working closely with industry partners, including urban foresters and nursery producers, to provide information and resources as Oregon launches a response to the discovery of EAB.

Faith Campbell has an extensive blog posts on the pre-work that has been done, and is continuing, on EAB in Oregon here.

Here are some photos from her post.

nearly pure stand of Oregon ash in Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon; photo by Wyatt Williams, Oregon Department of Forestry

193+: Gospels of Efficiency – What Does Efficiency Mean, Anyway? by Lloyd Irland

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This is the second in our series of posts summarizing and riffing on folks’ essays from the Steve Wilent-edited book 193 Million Acres. I first met Lloyd Irland’s  work back in the dinosaur days; a paper or presentation about Maine woodlots in conditions of market uncertainty.  I tried to find it to introduce this essay, but instead ran across a book chapter from 1984 on improving the EIS process: a case study of spruce budworm control.  Suffice it to say that Dr. Irland has been around for a while, and seen and studied many interesting things.

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When I was an undergrad, forestry economists were confidently announcing with a new approach to setting priorities: evaluate them according to economic metrics like net present value and return on investment. This, they believed, would enable officials to screen out projects that the economists considered inefficient and thus boost effectiveness of management of the federal forests. It was time, they said to make decisions on the basis of economic facts rather that vague notions of “good management”. Vast displays of such analyses, often comparing dozens and dozens of treatment options, were produced. Economists were soon being added to staffs at individual National Forests. Late in graduate school I read Sam Hays’s book “The Gospel of Efficiency” (note: this book can be read for free) about the leaders of the early conservation movement.

Fast forward a few decades: Steve Wilent invites contributions to a book on the “Efficiency and effectiveness of the US Forest Service”. I ponder this for a time: “efficiency, not a bad idea. But what does it really mean for forestry anyway?” As I thought about this, I remembered Hays’s book and decided to review an evolving series of different “Gospels of Efficiency”, a shorthand way to talk about different definitions of efficiency. I came up with a list:

Efficiency as elimination of waste, of losses to forest fire, and overgrazing. Major themes of early foresters at a time of peak lumber consumption by a growing nation. This way Hays’s conservation movement.

Efficiency as cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis, to be based on quantification. Science was to be the arbiter of what is “efficient”. This was becoming institutionalized as Program Planning and Budgeting, led on by MacNamara’s whiz kids at the Department of Defense. Those priests of efficiency then got me sent to Vietnam to efficiently fire artillery at targets out in the jungle.

The Gospel of Growth: effectiveness as working to meet ever-rising future needs for wood, meat, water, and campsites and hiking trails. Extreme examples proliferated: roads and pre-commercial
thinnings in lodgepole stands at 8,000 feet even “terracing” to solve the problem of poor regeneration. Huge dams were built on the premise that water that did not flow over an alfalfa field or through a turbine was flowing wastefully to the sea.

By the 1970s and 80s, more groups walked into the debates on efficiency with different notions of what might be efficient—unquantifiable values, outdoor recreation, biodiversity needed to be
accommodated, if not reign supreme. How to do this? The Gospel of Planning arose. We would build national RPA planning assessments and those would help set priorities for new Management
Plans that would enables us to serve all important values at once. The staffs, their offices, their conferences, and their documents got bigger and bigger. The ensuing analysis paralysis frustrated everyone. I found myself quoting General “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell who remarked, after visiting the Army’s War Plans unit in about 1940: “Somebody with a loud voice and big stick needs to march in there and yell “Halt”. Then carry all the plans outside and burn them”.

A solution was duly found: We’d keep the books better. Accounting, we were told, would give us the answers we were seeking. Hence the journey into TSPIRS. Money gainers were efficient, losers weren’t. That would be that. Herculean efforts ensued, conferences were held, computers whirred, accountants debated. Then the idea seems to have vanished.

Today a new Gospel has arrived: the Gospel of Ecosystem Services. If managing forests can’t make money from wood, answer is to get people to pay for ecosystem services. This concept had been
gaining traction for some time as Carbon arrived –the ultimate ecosystem service. It is not possible building on inventory, yield predictions, and GIS achievements for past decades, to design management program that will maximize the new single variable of choice: the carbon balance.

One reader of a draft cautioned me that the term “Gospels” should never be mentioned on campus these days. I retained it anyway as it hints at the fervor and determination of the advocates for these programs. None of these advocates were fools; they were optimistic that they had found solutions – they could make “efficiency” an effective mandate and guideline for forest management.

But the history of these Gospels shows that efficiency has meaning only in relation to goals. If there are no agreed-upon goals, then efficiency dissolves as a goal. But in an increasingly polarized and even tribal society, groups are bitterly divided over goals. For a time, satisfying groups of warring “stakeholders” seemed the only way forward. Now in a time when every stakeholder is back d by “campaigners”, litigators, and abundant funding, making peace among stakeholders seems a faint hope in many places.

Solutions: there are no new Gospels to resolve these predicaments, which are rooted in the polarization and entitlement trends in our wider society. Forestry cannot escape them. Some observers believe they are making effective governance virtually impossible, a view that has some merit in my estimation. A few incremental improvements could be made, however. Let me list two, and hope that you will read the full essay to see the others.

Revitalize and place higher priority on National Forest System implementation and effectiveness monitoring. For a time this was an active field. Today you search in vain for recent and through
reports. Without good information on what is actually happening, how can we begin to discuss efficiency, effectiveness, or goal attainment? Probably few “Forest Supes” ever make Regional
Forester on the basis of distinction on this task. I know this process interests data nerds and policy junkies like myself, but it is only good management and communication. It has to be done.

Second, I once had copies of two evaluations, a decade apart, that were conducted on the National Forests in Wyoming, following intense criticism of management practices on marginal, roadless lands. Unfortunately this was a pre-computer, pre-pdf era. Both reports were by informed and serious, outside people who studied, listened, and visited. The reports, in my opinion, were excellent, and should have received much wider distribution. I wish this could be done again, now and then, in representative locations around the country.

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from Sharon.. if anyone has copies of these evaluations, please send and I will post.

Washburn Fire Update – Mariposa Grove

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The fire has grown to 2,340 acres as of this morning, July 11, according to the NPS via Inciweb. “Fuels Involved: Timber and Brush – Mostly high load conifer litter (TL5) with heavy dead and down component as well as substantial standing dead.”

“The fire is burning in difficult terrain with continuous heavy fuels in and around the fire.  Significant tree mortality from 2013 – 2015 has left dead standing and dead fallen fuels.  This also presents significant safety hazards to firefighters.  Fire scars from past fires located approximately one to three miles from the current fire perimeter will assist firefighters in slowing the growth of the fire.  Firefighters will continue going direct when safe and will scout and prepare indirect lines.

“The fire was active overnight. Today is expected to be hotter and drier than yesterday, with similar fire behavior. The Park Service and Firefighters are proactively protecting the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias. While structure wrap is not being used on the sequoias themselves, additional methods are being used including the removal of heavy and fine fuels around the trees and deploying ground-based sprinkler systems to increase humidity near the trees. Fortunately, the Mariposa Grove has a long history of prescribed burning and studies have shown that these efforts reduce the impacts of high-severity unwanted fire.”

Sighting Of Ultra-Rare Wolverine Confirmed In Grand Tetons: from the Cowboy State Daily

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As Friday draws to a close, I thought I’d post something fun and cheerful. From the Cowboy State Daily, my favorite Wyoming news outlet, with this amazing image. I’m glad that there are people at Wyoming Game and Fish who could identify a wolverine from this photo :). Here’s to our wildlife bio colleagues!

By Ellen Fike, Cowboy State Daily

It may look like nothing more than a grainy blip, but that blip is something not seen very much in Wyoming.

It’s a wolverine and seeing wolverines in Wyoming is really quite rare. In fact, it’s only the second time one has been seen this year — which is a lot.

For perspective, a wolverine is only seen on average about every two years in Wyoming. That’s why it’s a big deal.

Out On A Run

Mike Devine, who took a video of a wolverine while out on a run in Darby Canyon over the weekend, told Cowboy State Daily he wasn’t sure exactly what he caught on his phone. Then he went home and went through the video and compared the footage to other wolverines he saw online.

“I started thinking that I actually saw one and then after just watching some videos on YouTube, I was pretty sure it was and then I sent it off to friends who worked at a EcoTours and they had it checked,” he said.

Thompson Tenley, a guide at Jackson Hole Eco Tours, said they forwarded the video to Wyoming Game and Fish which later confirmed the animal was a wolverine.

They instantly posted it to their Instagram page.

“Rare wolverine sighting on the west slope of the Tetons!” the company wrote. “Thank you to our friend Mike Devine for sending in this incredible footage.”

Not That Unusual?

Devine, a carpenter who lives in Victor, Idaho, said he was excited to spot the animal but more surprised it wasn’t as rare of a sighting that he thought.

“The more people I’ve talked to it’s kind of surprising like how many people have seen them,” he said listing many friends in the area who have also had encounters.

The sighting comes just a few months after a wolverine was video recorded in Yellowstone National Park.

Zack Walker, non-game supervisor with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday that it was quite rare for there to be two video recorded sightings of a wolverine in the same year.

“We get a handful of observations every year, but a lot of them are on trail cams or people seeing them, but not being able to grab their phones or cameras fast enough,” Walker said. “It’s really big to have the opportunity to see those videos.”

Growing Population

Walker said from the wolverine management data the Game and Fish Department collected over the winter, it appears that wolverines are popping up in more locations than they did five years ago. While he said the data the department has now does not confirm the population is getting bigger, that is believed to be the case.

New Mexico’s Largest Wildfire: Short Documentary by Taos News

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Inside New Mexico’s Largest Wildfire
1,972 views Jul 2, 2022 A short documentary film produced by the Taos News about the historic Calf Canyon–Hermits Peak Fire that burned over 341,000 acres across Northern New Mexico in 2022.

Produced by Nathan Burton and Geoffrey Plant; filmed and edited by Nathan Burton; John Miller, executive producer.

Here’s a video about fire and post-fire effects of the recent fires in New Mexico from the Taos News, thanks to a TSW reader.  Worth watching , 8 minutes.  It seems to me that both things are true; prescribed fire is a useful tool, and accidents can lead to tragic outcomes for people. It also shows people working on recovery with seedlings and tree planting.
 

 

Lawsuit aims to protect threatened species, but fire scientist says management delays could be worse

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From Jefferson Public Radio in southern Oregon….

A proposed lawsuit from Cascadia Wildlands, Center for Biological Diversity, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center and Western Environmental Law Center seeks to protect the marbled murrelet and coastal marten, which are both threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The BLM’s Integrated Vegetation Management forest management plan outlines 150,000 acres of prescribed fires, small diameter tree thinning, and commercial thinning in late successional reserves over the next ten years.

They argue the new decade-long forest management plan will be ineffective. The groups claim the proposed projects would make the old-growth forests less resilient to fire.

But Regional Fire Specialist Chris Adlam with Oregon State University says the BLM plan is a good approach and that the plan will help reintroduce beneficial fire.

“We wanna avoid these large areas of high-severity fire that tend to burn again and again at high severity, and prevent the forest from regenerating,” Adlam says.

He says, there’s a difference between low-intensity and high-intensity wildfires. Low-intensity fires — such as those happening naturally or in prescribed burns — can be beneficial. But high-intensity fires, like many wildfires we see now, can bring negative effects to the landscape and take longer for recovery.

Adlam says the 2020 Slater Fire wiped out huge portions of northern spotted owl habitat. That’s not the only time endangered species habitat has been threatened by high-intensity wildfire.

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The last line:

Adlam warns that if government agencies and conservation groups don’t work together, they could waste time as future catastrophic wildfires put species at greater risk.

Biden-Harris Administration Announces Members to Wildfire Commission

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Here’s a press release.

The commission will prepare a report with policy recommendations and submit them to Congress within a year of its first in-person meeting in August. A virtual introductory call is scheduled for this month. The Departments of Agriculture, the Interior and FEMA will provide support and resources to assist the commission with coordination and facilitation of their duties.

The commission’s work will build on existing interagency federal efforts such as the Wildland Fire Leadership Council and the White House Wildfire Resilience Interagency Working Group and will continue to pursue a whole-of-government approach to wildfire risk reduction and resilience. It’s creating comes at an important time as shifting development patterns, land and fire management decisions, and climate change have turned fire “seasons” into fire “years” in which increasingly destructive fires are exceeding available federal firefighting resources.

The roster is here.

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From Sharon:

Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today has some thoughts on the new Wildfire Commission appointees.

Bill is interested in people with on-the-ground experience as firefighters, he found one but thinks there are probably others. Not to wax all epistemological here, but what does it mean to know about things?  It seems that perhaps “knowing” in this case is often “writing about” but not direct experience.  When mechanisms need to be set in motion to do things, it seems to me that all things need to be considered at all levels.  Otherwise we writers, politicians and the vast array of internet-enabled pontificators can ramble on about things that are fundamentally undoable, or miss obvious things that screw up our best-laid plans.  How best to ensure that they don’t “gang aft agley“?  Considering more voices from all places. Hopefully that will happen somewhere in the process, perhaps an open public online time for ground-truthing.

A government official who is not authorized to speak publicly on the issue said the makeup of the commission “Has been close hold between fire leadership and intergovernmental affairs. Need to know basis; tighter than budget issues or executive orders.”

The members have their work cut out for them, already up to seven months late on mileposts. Their appointments were to be made no more than 60 days after the date the legislation became law, which works out to January 14, 2022. Their initial meeting was to be held within 30 days after all members have been appointed — no later than February 13, 2022. They are to meet at least once every 30 days, in person or remotely and will serve “without compensation” but can be reimbursed for travel expenses and per diem.

The Hotshot Wakeup Person (HWP) also has some thoughts about the Commission on this podcast at 28:56.  He has more concerns that whatever they come up with will be implemented than I do.  It seems to be there is plenty of politics between the Commission coming up with ideas and the Congress implementing them.

One of the questions is about “streamlining environmental reviews” or some such thing and I didn’t know anyone I recognize on this on the commission.

I used to count the number of females on commissions (HWP has noticed that females seem to be overrepresented in this group) and so on, but lately have been counting the locations of folks- I’m interested in representation of those impacted, which for wildfires tends to be in the western US, and I’d go so far as to say the “dry forest” part of that west (not, say, the Bay Area, for the most part).  Here’s what I came up with:

11 DC federal folks.

Az 2

CA 10

CO 5

DC 1

ID 1

MA 1

MT 2

NC 2

NM 1

NV 1

OK 1

OR 3

OK 1

WA 3

Others can check my counting, but it looks like a possible DC/CA show.

Points I like:  Of the two scientists, one is a social scientist.

Points I am not keen about:

*Forestry and forest industry as a category.  Forestry is a profession, forest industry is a business.  It’s kind of like having a category that says “doctors and health care providers” and having hospital businesspeople on the list. Of course, I think getting someone from the ITC is good, but still.

*Forest Stewardship and Reforestation
Sam Cook, Executive Director of Forest Assets & Vice President, NC State University Natural Resources Foundation, NC
Brian Kittler, Senior Director of Forest Restoration, American Forests, OR

From my experience, reforesting dry forests is a tough learning and tech transfer effort which we slowly accomplished in the 80’s at least in the drier parts of Region 6. Oh, and you also need nurseries. I would have selected someone with at least some time in the trenches of doing it (perhaps echoing Bill Gabbert and HWP re:firefighting). I don’t know why they picked these particular folks but it feels more like assuaging interests than developing policy and practices coordinated from the ground to the sky.  Which is of course what some of us have pointed out about current policies.. lack of integration and cohesion across governments and communities.

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Given all that, I know there are good people on the panel, and I hope they reach out somehow to the rest of us for ideas and comments.

On the Question of Whom to “Hold Accountable” For What in Bureaucracies; And the Symbolic Importance of Moving People

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Eric Anderson raised the question of “holding people accountable” within Federal agencies.  I thought that this might be a time for the elders on this site to chime in with their own experiences of that happening, and how that has or has not changed over time. Rather than wait until the FS does something and say “they’re doing it wrong”, let’s explore the different ways it could be done “right.” We’ll also talk about demoting and moving people as symbol rather than corrective.

I have a journalist friend who complained that, in an incident 10-15 years ago, that person X, the ranger for a prescribed fire that went out of control,  was “promoted” to the Regional Office.  I explained to her that in the culture of the Forest Service that was effectively a downgrade as being a District Ranger is being a line officer, and that means you get to make decisions.  Being in the Regional Office as staff means you are one of many possibly giving advice that can easily be ignored.  It was hard for me to explain (because I’m of the “same pay, less responsibility, what’s not to like? school), but it is highly valued within the culture. For those with those values, it was in fact a demotion.  Money isn’t everything, power is something too.  Anyway, if anyone would like to try to explain what being a line officer means from the cultural perspective, you are invited to write a post; I have never been able to explain that point of view adequately, and yet I have seen others write and talk about it quite eloquently.

At one time, I was asked to be the  interim manager in a complex management issue at one unit due on the surface to accusations of discrimination, but actually a giant-sized personality conflict among giant-sized personalities.  The Chief met with us and told us that sometimes for whatever reason, there was a need to move the leader for more or less symbolic reasons, whether or not that individual actually did anything wrong, and that it had happened to him. For the good of the Outfit as a whole, it was needed.

It seems to me that:

1. The FS (and certainly the scientific community) are asking folks to do prescribed fire.  Some think PB (and the thing formerly known as WFU) should do the major work of restoration/fuels reduction.

2. Yet PB can be dangerous and some also think windows will become narrower due to climate change.  Plus weather itself can be unpredictable over the timeframes involved.

3. Perhaps we (those who want PB as an important tool) are, to some extent, placing practitioners between the proverbial rock and the hard place (darned if you do, darned if you don’t), or asking the impossible.

What is the “right” amount of accountability? Do we assume that the processes that the fire folks have in place for lessons learned and continuous improvement will work? Does there need to be symbolic  movements of people? Does that reassure the public, and at the same time make all leaders more cautious? Who decides if there is “too much” caution?

And what of all this will most build trust among communities that the FS has learned from these tragedies, and has the right processes in place to ensure that they won’t happen again, or at least not for the same reasons?

I’m hoping that more knowledgeable and experienced people can weigh in on these questions.

NPR Story on (Some) Fire Experts Against FS 90-Day Review of Prescribed Fire

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I thought this NPR story was interesting.
Here’s the headline
Ecologists say federal wildfire plans are dangerously out of step with climate change

As far as I know from talking to a variety of folks, most fire ecologists and fire experts would agree with this claim:
Claim 1. Prescribed fire mostly works (especially in the East and South), but the FS needs to up its game with improved technology, better practices, less pressure on individuals for acres, more and better trained people, and so on.

Claim. 2. This is due to some combination of previous fire suppression, more housing, so that escapes are more dangerous (and perhaps have fewer suppression options), availability of suppression forces in the case of unwanted expansion, and climate change- all these factors in some unknown combination, making a new and increasingly combustible (so to speak) mix of conditions.

Please add your own thoughts on claim 1 or 2, or your own claims, in the comments.

On May 20, USFS Chief Randy Moore halted all so-called prescribed fires on its land for a 90-day safety review. The New Mexico fire has burned more than 340,000 acres and is still not fully contained.

But many fire ecologists and forestry experts are concerned that this “pause” is only worsening the wildfire risk. Critics say it’s merely masking the agency’s dangerously incremental, outdated and problematic approach to intentional burns and fire mitigation, a policy that has failed to adapt to climate change and megadrought.

Of course, many other ones, not cited in the story would not agree.  But logically, I don’t get this.. how much PB would the FS be doing IN THE SUMMER in the west. Let’s see, 90 days from May 20 is August 20. And the FS was having trouble hiring enough firefighters to handle wildfire this summer. So what possible PBs would be happening through that time?

Well, in the scientists’ letter, they say:

Today, we ask you to consider re-instating prescribed burning in areas on US National Forests that are not in extreme drought during the 90-day pause. For example, Regions 8 and 9 are not currently experiencing drought, have a long history of success stories with prescribed fire, and show strong need for growing season burning. The recent NOAA drought forecast for the US shows that much of the area of Regions 8 and Region 9 will be amenable to continued burning actions. Moreover, allowing FS scientists to collect data on prescribed burns conducted by non-federal partners during this period would likewise maintain a national leadership stance in the study of prescribed fire. Once the national review is complete and it is deemed safe to do so, we ask that you consider re-instating prescribed burning in the American Southwest and the western US, even if this occurs before the end of the 90-day pause.

It seems like they’re mostly talking about the Midwest and the South, which of course is not where people are concerned about accumulations leading to fire risk (and who, arguably do PB more often, with fewer undesirable results). So that statement does make sense (allow prescribed burning to continue) but not for the reason given (excessive fuel accumulations in the West).

But perhaps the 90 days is giving the FS a chance to “improve its dangerous… etc. approach.” Or set in motion longer term efforts to improve the approach. Why wouldn’t we think that’s what they’re doing?

Hurteau and others are concerned that the Forest Service — and other fire agencies — continue to fail to put climate change at the fore of decision-making, despite mounting scientific evidence and the agency’s own stated goals about reducing dangerously high levels of built-up fuel in western forests.

But what does it mean in practice to put “climate change at the fore?” Clearly one possibility is..conditions are different due to CC and we don’t exactly understand them, so let’s be very very careful with PB, more careful than we were before. But it doesn’t sound like the the scientists are arguing that in their letter.

Numerous sections of the report underscore that point, including noting that prescribed fire officials failed to realize it was set “under much drier conditions than were recognized.”

But was that a “climate change” thing, or a “measurements that the FS didn’t do correctly at the site” kind of thing (my reading of the report was the latter)? And if climate change doesn’t translate to something measurable (fuel moisture or air temp or humidity) at the site, are we missing measuring something really important?

For those reasons and others, experts worry that the agency’s prescribed fire “pause” is little more than political window dressing that tapes over those ongoing, glaring gaps between rhetoric and reality. Hurteau notes that just about all of the peer reviewed research on the issue as well as the Forest Service’s own plans for reducing hazardous forest fuels call for a historic scaling-up of prescribed burns.

“The question remains: Is the agency ready to make changes to the point that it will create conditions where the personnel, their personnel can do that effectively and that they’re well supported and well-resourced in order to accomplish those goals?”

Well, that is one question. Another question is whether the FS can build the coalitions with governments and other institutions to make that happen, including social license for that practice.
Anyway, just by reading this article, you might get the impression:

(1) The FS is really messed up.
(2) But experts feel that they should keep burning while they figure out how not to be messed up.

Which is not the impression I get from the actual scientists’ letter. I’m feeling quite sympathetic to reporters who try to navigate this..

And of course (predictably) a solution from me..

I think we’ve probably put zillions of dollars into modeling and technology development (say drones for sensing temperatures in burn piles, and models of varying degrees of accuracy and timeliness) but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a major gap between what is funded versus what is practical. So one suggestion would be to have a prescribed fire practitioner/researcher panel jointly determine key questions and approaches to any research purported to be helpful to PB.

More On Perceived Need for “Progressive” NGO’s Workplace Culture Improvement

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Many thanks to TSW reader Woody who contributed this link to an Intercept article on the broader topic of management/staff meltdowns in “progressive” NGOs (doesn’t this make you wonder to what extent this is happening in other organizations?).

Again, a rather inflammatory headline and tagline:

ELEPHANT IN THE ZOOM
Meltdowns Have Brought Progressive Advocacy Groups to a Standstill at a Critical Moment in World History

(A critical moment in World History?)

Here are some excerpts:

In fact, it’s hard to find a Washington-based progressive organization that hasn’t been in tumult, or isn’t currently in tumult. It even reached the National Audubon Society, as Politico reported in August 2021:

Following a botched diversity meeting, a highly critical employee survey and the resignations of two top diversity and inclusion officials, the 600,000-member National Audubon Society is confronting allegations that it maintains a culture of retaliation, fear and antagonism toward women and people of color, according to interviews with 13 current and former staff members.

Twitter, as the saying goes, may not be real life, but in a world of remote work, Slack very much is. And Twitter, Slack, Zoom, and the office space, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former executive directors of advocacy organizations, are now mixing in a way that is no longer able to be ignored by a progressive movement that wants organizations to be able to function. The executive directors largely spoke on the condition of anonymity, for fear of angering staff or donors.

“To be honest with you, this is the biggest problem on the left over the last six years,” one concluded. “This is so big. And it’s like abuse in the family — it’s the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. And you have to be super sensitive about who the messengers are.”

The human resources department and board of directors, in consultation with outside counsel, were brought in to investigate complaints that flowed from the meeting, including accusations that certain staff members had been tokenized, promoted, and then demoted on the basis of race. The resulting report was unsatisfying to many of the staff.

“What we have learned is that there is a group of people with strong opinions about a particular supervisor, the new leadership, and a change in strategic priorities,” said a Guttmacher statement summarizing the findings. “Those staff have a point of view. Complaints were duly investigated and nothing raised to the level of abuse or discrimination. Rather, what we saw was distrust, disagreement, and discontent with management decisions they simply did not like.”

A Prism reporter reached a widely respected Guttmacher board member, Pamela Merritt, a Black woman and a leading reproductive justice activist, while the Supreme Court oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization were going on last December, a year and a half after the Floyd meeting. She offered the most delicate rebuttal of the staff complaints possible. The human resources department and board of directors, in consultation with outside counsel, were brought in to investigate complaints that flowed from the meeting, including accusations that certain staff members had been tokenized, promoted, and then demoted on the basis of race. The resulting report was unsatisfying to many of the staff.

And having noted the previously noted the prominence of some foundations in grant-making with regard to our issues, I thought this was interesting.

The reliance of so many organizations on foundation funding rather than member donations is central to the upheavals the groups have seen in recent years, one group leader said, because the groups aren’t accountable to the public for failing to accomplish anything, as long as the foundation flows continue. “Unlike labor unions, church groups, membership organizations, or even business lobbies, large foundations and grant-funded nonprofits aren’t accountable to the people whose interests they claim to represent and have no concrete incentive to win elections or secure policy gains,” they said. “The fundamental disconnect of organizations to the communities they purport to serve has led to endless ‘strategic refreshes’ and ‘organizational resets’ that have even further disconnected movements from the actual goals.”

Beyond not producing incentives to function, foundations generally exacerbate the internal turmoil by reflexively siding with staff uprisings and encouraging endless concessions, said multiple executive directors who rely on foundation support. “It happens every time,” said one. “They’re afraid of their own staffs.”

How to work together again is, I’m sure, something these groups will ultimately figure out. I’ve done my time both mediating workplace disputes, and being involved in them. And certainly I’ve disagreed with management decisions, and had mine disagreed with. At our Kennedy School training, I remember one of our teachers saying something along the lines of “most team disagreements are caused by roles being unclear”; I don’t know if that’s the case here or perhaps people disagree with the roles. As a veteran of much smaller scale kinds of workplace conflicts, I have compassion, and wish the best, for everyone involved.