Forest Policy
Senator Scrutinizes Public Land Management
By Kirk Siegler, 12-02-05
Forest management decisions need to be made at the local level, with input from locals who will be affected, U.S. Senator Conrad Burns told an audience packed with government officials, industry leaders and environmentalists at a hearing in Missoula today.
The Republican Montana Senator called for a more unified approach by the U.S. Forest Service as it conducts forest management plan revisions across the Northern Region.
“The problem is, you’ve got people in the Forest Service with different agendas,� Burns said at the hearing for the Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies, of which he chairs. “There should be one philosophy, and everyone should be working toward that philosophy.�
The trouble, however, seems to be in finding one philosophy that can work in an increasingly polarized arena.
Conservationists or timber or off-road vehicle proponents who testified at the hearing couldn’t find much common ground on many of the issues facing forests -- which are now in the midst of revising management plans, the documents that will ultimately guide how the land gets used.
Some think the more uses the better, like Russ Ehnes, the head of the Great Falls-based Montana Trail Vehicle Riders Association.
“We’ve seen the people that promote more wilderness change the nomenclature of the debate,� Ehnes said.
Ehens was among six witnesses handpicked by the Senator’s staffers to present testimony at the hearing.
“I can tell you that since my father began trail riding in the fifties, he can no longer ride to Bighorn Lake or Heart Lake, which are now in the Scapegoat Wilderness. The trail he used to ride from Rogers Pass to Stemple Pass is now closed for grizzly habitat,� Ehnes said.
Ehnes argued more roads and trails might alleviate conflict between his group’s members and so-called traditional forest users, like backpackers and horseback riders.
Conservationists, on the other hand, said that kind of plan would have detrimental impacts on the ecosystem.
“Why not transform existing logging roads into trails, so that we’re fighting less?� asked John Gatchell, conservation director for the Montana Wilderness Association, who also testified.
Gatchell noted his group has partnered with off-road vehicle interests, namely snowmobile clubs on the Helena and Lewis and Clark National forests, where he said four consecutive winter recreation agreements had been reached between the USFS, his group and OHV users. Gatchell also praised the Pyramid Lumber Company in the Swan Valley -- an organization he said was committed to sustainable timber forestry.
“After twenty years of fighting in every arena (in the Seeley Lake District),� Gatchell said, “We’re working as partners committed to a single management plan, and believe me, that’s an accomplishment.�
Whether a similar compromise can be reached among conservation groups like the MWA and logging interests next door on the Beaverhead-Deer Lodge National Forest remains to be seen. For his part, Senator Burns didn’t shy away from criticizing some of the decisions recently made there by forest planners, particularly regarding proposed wilderness designations.
“When wilderness recommendations are made in a plan, the Forest Service then manages these areas as if they were wilderness,� the Senator said, “So we get de facto wilderness without any act of Congress at all.�
The Beaverhead-Deer Lodge Forest’s management plan is among a list of eight forests in the Northern Region with plans currently up for review. But unlike its counterparts, officials on the Beaverhead are following guidelines from old regulations. That’s because the new regulations handed down by the Bush Administration were adopted after managers on the Beaverhead started the planning process.
The new regulations are designed to make the public process less polarized, said Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth, the former Region One supervisor in Missoula who also testified today.
Like Senator Burns, Bosworth was critical of certain parts of national environmental laws, chiefly NEPA (the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969), that he said were passed at a time when the Forest Service was “focused on extraction.�
“Now that the agency is focused on restoration, NEPA laws are actually preventing forests from being restored,� Bosworth argued. “There are groups that are litigating virtually every project.�
In particular, Senator Burns expressed frustration of lawsuits surrounding timber harvests that the Forest Service says are necessary to deal with trees killed by the white bark pine beetle.
Bosworth agreed, but acknowledged the abundance of beetle-killed trees in recent years is natural. Warmer winters have created more lush forests, and thus more habitat for the beetle.
“They’re a natural species reacting to a natural problem,� Bosworth said, “There’s too many trees.�
Add that timber issue to the issue of how to manage recreation and you’ve got two of the most hotly contested debates in the West.
Missoula didn’t buck any stereotypes today on its prominent image around the state as a town bursting with environmental activists. After the hearing, handmade signs with phrases like “Defend our Forests,� dotted the crowd of some 250 people. The dozens of activists holding them mingled in with people who traveled to Missoula from many timber-dependent communities across the state. In the crowd, the division was readily heard and seen.
“As a state representative, I’m just appalled by what groups like yours are doing to our community,� said one state legislator from Superior.
“Why don’t you stop cutting all the trees?� responded the activist, holding the “Defend our Forests� sign.
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A corn field also has weeds, snakes, rats, bugs, micobiotic life. Lawns usually have some hidden, unplanned diversity.
But on another, more important, issue raised, I think there should be some level of rethinking of the roads issue as it relates to wilderness. I think only a road with a certain level of development and traffic really causes major disruption to the wild character of the land. Perhaps existing low intensity logging/recreation roads should be viewed more like trails and not hurt chances for wilderness designation. Never any roads of any kind has always seem too absolutist a criteria for wilderness consideration or elimination from consideration. (It ignores that much of the land was traversed, used and influenced in various ways for thousands of years, albeit without roads.)
I could live with continued minor road usage after wilderness designation because I think the wilderness designation adds more value than the damage of most lightly used roads. I know any roads have numerous damaging effects but in striking a political balance I would try to remove a fair amount of the objection from sportsman/backroad motor vehicle users. This doesnt mean free roaming form off-road vehicles, it is an attempt to do the opposite and to provide the minimum level of access and perhaps control the level of damage. But many folks will abuse the forest no matter what the rules are.
A person that drives up 20 miles of forest road and then hikes ten miles may cause less damage then a person that drives up the same 20 miles then rides 30 miles on an ATV by a factor of 5 or 10 or more but both have had an impact on the woods, both have benefited from the experience, both should support funding for wilderness and for usage damage mitigation, and in my mind both should have places that are reasonably suited to accomodate their usage. Often separate, doesnt have to be exactly equal or overly broad, but some access.
Building more consensus seems a wiser long run strategy than seeing past gains repeatedly undercut by the other side that feels unfairly treated and perhaps pushes even a further rollback than they might accept in a compromise solution if offered out of spite and revenge. Of course you have to consider who really wants consensus and who is never going to stop trying to win on everything for alltime. The former can be said for many even if they are listed on the two different sides but the latter can also be said of many on both sides. The folks nearer the middle have to keep control or get control back from the wings, in my opinion.