Forest Management

The ‘Paradigm Shift’ in Forest Policy You Never Heard About

By Courtney Lowery, 3-08-05

In December, right before Christmas, the Forest Service finalized and released new rules on how forest supervisors on the ground should manage their forests. The rules were the first revision of the management planning process since the early '80s.

Nearly everybody says the revisions were long overdue. The process of drafting and finalizing management plans for our national forests has become too cumbersome, they say, too rigid, too lengthy. A management plan is basically a forest's "constitution," governing how the forest should be used, which parts should be logged, which parts should be open to off-road recreation etc. They are updated every 15 years, but under the current rules for revising the plans, some have been in the revision process since the last one was finalized.

Hence, the need for the revision of the top-down "streamlined" rules for management planning.

It was no small revision by any means. It's pages upon pages of what University of Montana associate professor of natural resource policy Martin Nie calls a "a paradigm shift" in how our national forests will be managed.

The Forest Service doesn't deny that, at all.

"This new rule is a big deal," said Pam Gardiner, the Forest Service's director of ecosystem assessment and planning in the Northern Region. "It's a big deal for the Forest Service ... it's a big deal for the public."

And it is a big deal. Big enough to bring out the big guns of forest policy Monday night in Missoula. Former Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas for one. Gardiner for another. Julia Altemus of the Montana Logging Association and the lawyer she had a little scuffle with during the panel -- EarthJustice attorney Timothy Preso.

Altemus and Gardiner were the only ones to come out and say they were big fans of the new revisions. Gardiner, granted, is a fan, because she is the Forest Service and her collegues worked long and hard on the new regs. She said at the panel discussion Monday that the regs will better allow the public to become involved. The agency says public involvement will increase partially because the new regs will cut the time it takes to develop said plans nearly in half.

Altemus, of course, loves the plan because it means there doesn't have to be an environmental impact statement for each broadened management plan like there used to be under the National Environmental Policy Act. Instead, there's a simplified "Environmental Managment System," which the logging community favors.

Thomas was unsure of the ramifications of the new rules, but said a revision was long overdue. And then there was Preso, who has already helped put the new rules into their first set of litigation in Defenders of Wildlife vs. Johanns.

So why are we just now getting word of all of this? (If you are one of the devout followers of forest policy, you likely have already heard all of this... maybe you even participated in the conversation that drafted these rules. If so, kudos. But too bad the rest of us got left out.)

The truth of it is, we tend not to give a hoot about forest planning. We want to know when there is a timber harvest. We want up-to-date information on fires and lightning strikes and fuel densities on forest floors, but rarely do we involve ourselves in the process. It's long and drawn out -- precisely why the Forest Service made the revisions. But now, the rules are too lax -- too open to interpretation. As Nie said, the new regulations will do good in either's hands -- a utilitarian administration or a preservationist administration. They are designed to take a systematic approach to planning and give "maximum administration direction," Nie said.

The issue now is -- which kind of administration do you think is in the White House right now?

Exactly. We are being governed by the kind of administration that pushes a set of regulations, dripping with phrases like "establishes a dynamic process to account for changing forest conditions," and "will help local forest managers provide future generations with healthier forests, cleaner air and water, and more abundant wildlife while sustaining a variety of forest uses."

It does this quietly while we stand by wondering what the hell "forest planning" really means.

So next time you hear your local forest is having a planning meeting -- bring some coffee if you need to -- show up. Whether you think our forests should be logged or turned into wilderness shouldn't matter. What should matter is that these new regulations will take that decision away from the public by putting more power in the hands of the managers.

Really, forest policy is one place where officials can pretty-up the language and spoon feed it to us (sans Congressional review, for instance) without us knowing that really -- it could mean the difference between whether our kids have a National Forest system to enjoy or not.

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