University of Montana Law School Conference

Forest Service Needs an Overhaul, Experts Say

By Lucia Stewart, 9-25-08

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The US Forest Service needs an overhaul in its management of public lands in order to effectively handle diverse recreation, climate change, extractive industries, as well as align with an emerging land ethic, said a prominent panel at the University of Montana Land Law conference.

“Forest of Montana and in the West are critical for our community, children, as resources and for all those things that don’t talk,” said panel moderator Jim Burchfield, Associate Dean at the UM College of Forestry.

The University of Montana 32nd annual Land Law Conference took place earlier this week in Missoula. This panel discussion on the future of the Forest Service as it moves into the next administration, was just one of the many in-depth land law discourses presented at the conference.

Martin Nie, Associate Professor of Natural Resource Policy at the UM, presented the latest news with the release of the “National Forest Policy Assessment”, a report requested by Senator Jon Tester in January 2008 as a third-party evaluation and analysis on policy issues and a set recommendations on the USDA Forest Service.

“There remain core differences of opinion on how [the US Forest Service] operates,” said Nie. “The agency is being whipsawed into how it should proceed, which can have a debilitating affect on what should be prioritized. These abrupt changes in policy are making it difficult for personnel on how to move forward.”

The following summarizes the highlights points in the reports. Click here for a copy of the report.

1. Lawmakers should reinvest in the protection and management of National Forests and fund the USFS at levels commensurate with its responsibilities.

2. There is broad-based national and state-level support for administratively protecting inventoried roadless areas and the lands should be protected accordingly.

3. The 208 forest planning regulations fail to find an appropriate balance between adaptability and enforceable standards and should be rewritten.

4. Private land development adjacent to National Forests is an increasing problem that must be systematically confronted via an assortment of policy approaches and tools, from fully-funded land acquisition programs to landscape-level planning initiatives.

5. Forest restoration begins with comprehensive transportation planning that identifies and funds upgrading, maintenance, or decommissioning forest roads.

6. Legal standards must play an essential role in National Forest management. Increasing conflict and uncertainty has led to alternative methods of conflict resolution, including place-based forest-specific legislative proposals.

7. A comprehensive assessment of National Forest policy and management by an inclusive set of interests and perspectives should be initiated in 2009.

It’s at a critical junction never had before, with challenges ranging from fire, water, forest health, recreation, public access, economic strains, motorized land travel, and more, said Nie.

“The next administration has an ability to move us forward in a mutual and agreeable set of solutions,” said Nie. “Reinvestment is our key word in our report.”

Also speaking on the panel was Thomas DeLuca, a Forest Ecologist for The Wilderness Society. He summarized the changes in temperature — our mean March temperature from 1954 to 2004 increased by 7.7F — and what the implications of this are, including glacial retreat, loss the wintertime snow pack, increasing of extended drought, pine beetle infestation and increase in fire season and acreage burned.

His question to the audience was: “How do we restore the forests, both before and after fires?

“We need to focus on restoring processes,” said DeLuca. “Forest restoration is a young science. We need to monitoring, conduct ecosystem monitoring and adjust accordingly.”

“We also need to provide vertical and horizontal migration availability to species with changing climatic conditions, as well as water and carbon storage availability.”

He particularly focused on a community fire protection zone, equal to quarter mile around the community.

Also joining the conversation was Ellen Engstedt-Simpson, Executive Vice President of Montana Wood Products Association, discussing how to maintain the faltering forest industry.

“So what constitutes a healthy forest?” said Engstedt-Simpson. “It’s in the eye of the beholder.”

She stated active management is the key to improvement in forest conditions, which is through logging and other activities on the ground, since there is a need to reduce forest density to keep it healthy. Active management also means re-foresting after harvest or catastrophe.

“The offshoot is the ability to produce wood product, which we all use,” said Engstedt-Simpson.

She did have a critical analysis of the pessimism towards the 2003 Healthy Forest Act, saying this outcry against the act denounced the public input and collaboration that was a part of the forest management plan.

“The public needs to participate in public land management,” said Engstedt-Simpson. “The process in place, and those who are sincerely interested sometimes do comment. But sometimes the special interest parties, that say they are speaking for their interest group, comment in attempts to pick apart the progress that is being made. To me that’s not public participation.”

She concluded by stating, “Green trees are very beautiful. But sometimes I like them vertical rather than horizontal.”

Last to speak was Rebecca Tsosie, Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Indian Legal Program at the Sandra Day O’Conner College of Law, at Arizona State University.

When it comes to public land law, “ethics ought to guide the conversation,” said Tsosie.

“To what extent do we really have to care?”

She discussed that the values of land ethics are changing to become the age of restoration and the age of social participation.

“Are we willing to engage this discussion between tribal forests and federal forests?” she asked.

“Bureau of Indian Affairs has to cover everything – so if public land is way down on the priority list, then tribal lands are even farther down,” said Tsosie. “Nothing happens without money.”

Public land law and land ethics there has been a paradigm, and we need to integrate, she concluded.

The session concluded by Karin Sheldon, Professor at the University of Montana Law School, commenting how we need to look at opportunities to reform the US Forest Service and the public land laws.

“The next administration has bigger fish to fry than public lands, so maybe this is a time to spend our time reflecting,” said Sheldon. “How is it we go about looking at public lands? How can we going forward and integrate our relationship and connection to the land.”

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