GUEST COMMENTARY: THE FOREST JOBS AND RECREATION ACT
Tester’s Forest Bill: Where Local, State and National Interests Come Together
By Tom France, Guest Writer, 8-04-09
 |
|
 | |
| Tom France | |
|
Two weeks ago, Senator Jon Tester introduced the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, an important bill that provides new direction to the Forest Service for logging and restoration forestry and which will designate 668,000 acres of wilderness across Montana. Because Senator Tester’s legislative proposal grew out of several collaborative initiatives, who in turn engaged the support of an extraordinarily broad cross-section of Montana conservation organizations, timber mills, local governments, labor unions, and individuals, it is worth once again considering how this hard work and broad support came together and how it will ultimately lead to the legislation’s passage.
In 2006, representatives from five Montana timber mills, the National Wildlife Federation, the Montana Wilderness Association, and Montana Trout Unlimited began meeting to consider a straightforward proposal. Could we collectively find better outcomes for forest management than those being proposed by the Forest Service in a new forest plan for the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest? Fundamentally, the timber mills were concerned that they would go out of business because there would not be enough timber available to keep their mills running. On the conservation side, little was proposed for wilderness designation, and the fish and wildlife programs on the forest were relegated to custodial status. A lose-lose situation was obviously in no one’s best interest.
This collaboration became known as the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership. The partners found common ground by recognizing that logging itself wasn’t necessarily bad for wildlife and water quality, if done in the right way and on the right scale. We also recognized that climate change and beetle infestations were turning vast areas of national forest land from green to brown, and that these dead and dying trees represented both a threat to local communities and an opportunity to re-establish new forest stands rather than waiting for forest fires to do it.
We also found agreement that fish and wildlife restoration could, and should, be a positive outcome of a sustainable forestry program. A model for the logging we envisioned existed in the Forest Service’s stewardship contracting authority that was developed during the 1990s. Under a stewardship contract, goods are exchanged for services, which is to say that logs cut on Forest Service lands are paid for not through a check cut to the U.S. Treasury, but for specific services on the ground, such as road reclamation, stream restoration, or campground rehabilitation. Several of the partners had been involved in the Clearwater Stewardship Project on the Lolo National Forest and knew that if done right, stewardship contracts are a win-win for both people and wildlife.
Finally, all of the partners recognized that pristine Montana landscapes should be protected through wilderness designation. In part, this recognition grew out of past failures to pass a state-wide wilderness bill and the need to resolve those parts of the wilderness debate we could move forward. It also grew out of our shared view that Montana’s future depends as much on protecting our fish and wildlife heritage and the habitat upon which it depends, as it does on maintaining a healthy timber industry. Both create jobs. Both are good for Montana’s economy. With this vision, the Beaverhead-Deerlodge partners proposed 16 of the new wilderness areas in Senator Tester’s bill.
In addition to the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership, there were two other collaborative processes that were simultaneously occurring in Montana. These were the Three Rivers Partnership in the Kootenai National Forest in northwestern Montana and the Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Project in the Lolo National Forest’s Seeley and Swan Valleys. The common threads through all three of these efforts are that, first, people can work together and find agreement on forest management strategies that provides timber and jobs. Second, people can work together and find strategies that restore damaged landscapes and protect those that are already intact. Finally, on an issue that many regard as too polarizing to touch, people can identify areas that need to be protected as wilderness for future generations.
Senator Tester has now incorporated all three initiatives into the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. There are some who cry that more is needed, whether it be more or less timber, more or less access, or more or less, usually much more or much less, wilderness. While these critics are entitled to their view, they for the most part, reject the common principles that brought Montanans together on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge, the Blackfoot-Clearwater and the Yaak Valley, and instead focus only on their piece of the forest management puzzle. Such narrow approaches in the past have failed to produce results or even forward motion, and Senator Tester deserves huge credit for his leadership in trying a new strategy, brought to him by a broad core of Montanans who share a love and respect for our forests, waters, wildlife and special places.
The National Wildlife Federation is proud of the role it has played in this collaboration.. Our hope is that it will become a template for resolving other long-standing debates in the West over how best to use and protect public lands. We encourage Montanans to read the bill, make the suggestions they deem appropriate to improve it, and--at the end of the day--to support this approach toward finding win-win solutions, rather than endless stalemate and conflict. There are lots of places left in Montana, and elsewhere in the United States, where the lessons that led to the Montana Forest Jobs and Recreation Act can--and should--be applied.
Footnote: Tom France is Regional Executive Director for the National Wildlife Federation.
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Comments
Let's go through it one more time. Tallies vary; but, there is "about" 5 or 6 million acres of candidate Wilderness in Montana, primarily in the form of WSAs and other roadless areas. Right now, all of these areas are under Vilsack's direct control and may or may not be touched in the foreseeable future. This Tester proposal protects a bit more than 10% of that 5 or 6 million acres while releasing two WSAs and probably a lot more roadless than we expect. I understand that this is supposed to be a compromise, with both sides giving a bit; but, protecting 10% of the areas that should be protected still leaves those of us on the conservation side a long way from our goal and opening a "collaborative compromise" relationship with a 90/10 split seems, well, just a bit of a condescending screw and now you go and remind everyone that NWF helped craft the insult. I might have been more inclined to be more positive about a 70/30 split, but a 90/10 split seems skewed. What happens to that other 90%, that other maybe 4 million or more acres? Will it be another 25 years before the conservation side gets any more of it protected? Are we supposed to be happy with a 10% bone to gnaw on? If this is Tester's (and your) big push to break the wilderness logjam, why propose only a 10% solution, especially if you truly intend to see more than 10% protected later anyway? In fact, this charade of a conservation bill only protects a bit more than 600,000 of Montana's roadless areas; Colorado is working to protect over 4 million; and that's frigging Colorado! If this is going to be Tester's (and your) new model for a new collaborative beginning, why did the collaboration stop at only a 10% offering to the conservation side? What the hell kind of conservationist are you? What faith can we have that this kind of a lopsided beginning is only the beginning and that we should be happy with this start?
As I have said before, I worry that the passage of this bill might be used as a political ploy to poison the well for further Wilderness protection. I can hear it now, "Tester gave them some wilderness; but, the enviros are never satisfied." I've heard that before.
Again, essentially all of the roadless in Montana is under Vilsack's control right now and there aren't any big cracks in that armor, at least not right now. I don't see any reason to panic, at least not yet; but, I fear that this bill could be exactly the kind of political ploy that could open that first crack in roadless protection. Why get spooked and chance it for a 10% proposal that, as far as I'm concerned, is rather insulting.
Speaking of getting spooked into taking the bait on a bad deal, lot's of people seem desperate to convince the conservation side that NREPA is dead, will never be anything but dead, that we need to cut a deal while we can, and that we're so hard up that even a 10% charity share is the best we're ever going to get. I've played that game myself before; it's nasty and I, for one, won't fall for it. Frankly, NWF's involvement in this crock reminds me of how the GYC let CUT screw the conservation movement out of, what was the final total, over $30 million for thirty year lease on twenty or thirty AUs worth of bison range that CUT is making sure the bison never get to use anyway.
You idiot; you ought to just shut up, slink away, and hope no real conservationists ever remember you and your limp-wristed org were ever involved.
Tester steers toward middle-of-road land bill
The Montana map on Jon Tester's forestry bill Web page ends just east of Bozeman and Great Falls. It shows that this isn't a bill to end all wilderness bills. It wouldn't decide forever the decades-old argument of whether Montana has too much or too little public land protected from roads, motorized use and development.
However, Senate Bill 1470 is the first effort in a generation to set aside Montana wilderness and also the first effort to combine forest conservation and logging. By calling the bill "Forest Jobs and Recreation Act," Tester even avoided that controversial W word.
Pragmatic approach
The bill is a pragmatic approach that proposes managing federal lands according to the specific attributes, values and needs of a particular area. Thus, the Jobs and Rec Act is really three bills in one, based on separate areas of federal lands with input by people who know and use those lands for a myriad of purposes such as hiking, hunting, outfitting, logging, off-roading and snowmobiling.
As previously reported in The Gazette, Tester's legislation garnered support and input from a variety of Montanans including, but not limited to: Montana Wilderness Association, Montana and National Wildlife Federations, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, Wilderness Society, Troy Snowmobile Club, Pyramid Lumber in Seeley Lake, Rosebud Forest Products in Missoula, Sun Mountain Lumber in Deer Lodge and Kootenai Ridge Riders ATV Club.
Tester and his staff received input from dozens of organizations, met with interested citizens and held public listening sessions. All the senator's meetings were listed on his Web schedule, according to Tester spokesman Patrick Devlin.
"There's never been a request for a meeting (on this issue) that we turned down," Devlin said.
'Home-grown solution'
Tester touts his bill as "a smart, home-grown solution." Of course, there are critics who want a much larger area designated wilderness as proposed in the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act. And others oppose virtually any new wilderness designation.
Tester staked out middle ground and found a lot of company there. His bill has a long road ahead before it can get Barack Obama's signature. But it's a cinch that a bill proposing an extremist position won't become law. Because he started with grass roots, his Jobs and Rec Act has the best chance of growing into a successful public-lands law.
As described by Missoulian reporter Michael Jamison in Monday's Gazette, proposals for the three areas addressed in Tester's bill involved discussions and relationships that predate Tester's term. Tim Baker of the Montana Wilderness Association recalled a timber summit organized by former Sen. Conrad Burns at which Burns told Baker and and a logging company representative that they ought to work together because they weren't that far apart in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. In the Seeley Lake area, varied interests already had a track record of working together for shared interests, like clean water. In the Yaak Valley, a neighbor brought other neighbors together.
"There is a yearning for this type of approach out there. People are really tired of shouting at each other," Bruce Farling, executive director of Montana Trout Unlimited, told The Gazette State Bureau recently.
Let's keep talking about this legislation.
As you noted in your article, Senator Tester is being applauded for recognizing the good work of Montanans from the Yaak to the Beaverhead-Deerlodge and taking the lead on a very tough issue.
Again, thank you Mr. France and Senator Tester for your willingness to work together for a better Montana. Hopefully, this is only the beginning and the Forest Jobs and Recreation bill will set in motion a future where the stone-throwers become a thing of the past and common-sense leads the way.
The PDF map provides the true story. This isn't a conservaton bill. And in 100 years, when our great grand kids seek out what little wild is left, they are going to wonder why balding, overweight white guys traded away rare roadless habitat for a couple of small private sawmills.
The National Wildlife Federation, Trout Unlimited and the Montana Wilderness Society are organizations that have strong track records of actually advancing the ball for conservation in a vast number of examples. These organizations are not content just to sit on the sidelines and criticize and sue agencies for not doing enough. Rather, they roll up their sleeves and work to find solutions that will work for many rather than for just a few.
I like NREPA. I'd like it more if it had actually accomplished anything in the 16 years I've been following it.
What has instead occurred in the intervening years is that wilderness characteristics have been eroded across hundreds of thousands of acres of Montana as motorized recreationists have spread deep into previously untouched areas using new powerful snow machines and ATVs.
The suggestion that Tester's bill creates motorized areas is ridiculous. What is does by necessity is recognize someo of the new motorized areas that have been created by the failure of the NREPA-crowd to get anything done. The Left of Green have been throwing fondue parties and lobbying eastern politicians (the only ones that have ever endorsed NREPA) while Rome has burned. Talk about job security....
At last someone has shown up with a community fire truck and some water pressure to save big pieces of Montana's wilderness while moving the discussions toward a reasonable mainstream. Thanks Jon Tester!
Name one!
Climber said: "I like NREPA. I'd like it more if it had actually accomplished anything in the 16 years I've been following it."
NREPA won't "create" a single acre of new wilderness, it will, however, protect the (de facto) wilderness we already have. In 1988, Montana had 6.4 million acres of roadless lands that qualilfy for congressional designation. In 2009, Montana has 6.4 million acres, all of which is protected H.R. 1975 (NREPA). I'd suggest that wasn't accomplished by collaboration and Quislings.
Stumps and roads or wilderness, it's not that complicated. Defend wilderness, or lose it, it's that simple.
TU got the Montana Clean Water bill passed, the state's stream access provisions codified into law and has been a leader in climate change (see their report Trout in Trouble).
NWF has protected more than 50,000 acres of national forest land surrounding Yellowstone Park by buying up (with many partners) grazing allotments (from willing sellers) in areas where conflicts existed between livestock (especially sheep) and wolves, grizzlies, bison, and other wildlife thereby making insecure habitat into secure habitat.
MWA has been a leader and founder of the Blackfoot-Clearwater cooperative Stewardship Project which is, like the Tester bill, a case history on how to accomplish collaborative conservation that works for many.
Perhaps a common featrue of these (and some other outcome-oriented conservation groups) is that they are respected and listened to by the state and federal agencies that actually have the responsibility for managing public lands because they know how to do more than litigate and complain.
I've actually been on some of those AWR lobby trips back during the Clinton Administration. I can't remember much wine and cheese, but plenty of microbrew and doobie. I know this was before your time, but maybe this is why AWR has never been able to get it done during a friendly Democratic administration either.
There is definately some smoke over Bozeman today. How is it around the AWR office in Missoula today? I hope these conservationists-with-results aren't ruining your high. There is still plenty of wilderness for you to keep working for between now and retirement. We can only hope you take a page from their playbook and figure out how to get some of it done....
Yeah, Tester's bill could have designate more wilderness and release less acres. But what's the Big Picture? In terms of the ecological values that NREPA is out to protect, isn't a permanent Roadless Rule a half-decent means of getting from A to B? Isn't long-term roadless area protection a helluva lot more realistic than several million acres of new wilderness? Can't roadless protection happen in 2009, rather than hoping for some far-off day by which a bunch more of these areas might have lost their roadless characteristics under business as usual?
Doesn't mean the nation shouldn't demand a bunch more Montana wilderness, or that Montana shouldn't aspire to be more like Colorado on protecting its National Forest wilderness lands (say what you like, Colorado has done okay and is going back for more). But if the issue is ecosystems -- as opposed to the recreational experience -- most of the science indicates that wildlife, plants and streams can function okay if the major threats are taken out of the equation. We're talking mines, drilling, industrial forestry, heavy & unregulated motorized use.
The State of Montana supports roadless protection, and was amici curiae in support of the plaintiffs, the winning parties in today's Ninth Circuit decision throwing out the State Petition rule and re-instituting the original 2001 Roadless Rule. That's got to count for something. Is now the time for national roadless legislation? Instead of squabbling about the Tester bill, should those who believe in wild forests unite behind that nation-wide vision and strike while the iron is hot? Or is this more about calling names and climbing on ideological high horses than it is conservation?
Incidentally, I made a typo on the number of acres around Yellowstone that NWF has converted from unsecure to relatively secure habitat for grizzlies and other wildlife through allotment retirements. It is 550,000 acres so far...more to come. If connectivity to other ecosystems gets established it will be a result of efforts like these (and the wilderness areas and stewardship logging contracts that are in Tester's bill) and other bills like it that will follow if this one is sucessfully passed. It is time now to move from the failed polemics of the past.
Climber, the roadless rule has just been upheld again. Reread my first comments in that context. Your continued slavering over this Tester/NWF bill does not fit good conservation strategy when roadless is still protected and all this bill does is release some of it ...for exploitation and motorized mayhem. And again, if you were a true conservationist and not somebody flying a false flag, you will already know all of that without my having to explain it.
GREEK, you're pretty wise to the priorities, maybe you're really a Greek. I want NREPA; but, with the roadless rule upheld, we have time to be careful about what we give up. As I said before, there's nothing wrong with compromise, if it's reasonable, which the Tester/NWF bill is not. Compromise is a good thing and we may not need every bit of NREPA, although I wish we could have it; but, our best strategy is to stand our ground until we get something much closer than 10%, some PEW dollars left on some dresser, and a pat on the behind as they get out of bed and head home.
Tim Border, thank you for your help here and you make a very good point that shouldn't go unrecognized. There is a lot of hype about this Tester garbage being a "home-grown" solution (not to any problem I know of; but, that's the media hype). Since when is the NWF a local "grassroots" group. If there was ever any solution that is not local, it's a solution the NWF crafts out of its mega-corporate publishing and merchandising offices in Reston, Virginia.
Mike, you're right. If any real conservationist looked at the maps, they'd see what an insult this Tester/NWF bill really is.
Steve Kelly and Tom Woodbury, thanks and please continue. I don't think we ought to let "them" use their money and size to dominate the media discussions.
Thanks for the article and the willingness to understand that the resolution or at least progress on public lands issues must come from a vast array of stakeholders. I commend you and your organization for your willingness to consider other viewpoints, a lesson that obstructionist environmental groups like The alliance For The wild rockies and The native ecosystems council seem unable to learn.
1. Any amount of Congressionally mandated timber sales is a red flag and a precedent that should not be set.
2. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks has expressed concerns about additional logging within the Beaverhead portion of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in regards to negative impacts on elk security cover (not to mention other forest dwelling creatures). We share those concerns. We have no idea where the proposed mandated timber harvests will take place.
3. Senator Tester’s public statement about domestic livestock grazing “rights” being preserved on these public lands is especially troubling. Where did this idea come from?
4. And what about the impacts of exotic livestock on the native plant and animal bio-diversity of these public lands? These impacts are not being ignored by this proposal they are being preserved by this proposal.
5. Regarding livestock impacts to native wildlife please know that nearly 17,000 domestic sheep currently trail through the Robb-Ledford Wildlife Management Area and adjacent USFS lands in the Snowcrest Mountain Range on their way to and from (each spring and fall) public land livestock allotments in the Gravelly Mountain Range. Is this a grazing “right” that will be preserved under this proposal? This subsidized domestic sheep presence precludes native bighorn sheep from ever again occupying historic habitat over a vast landscape of public lands not limited to the Beaverhead National Forest. And although a significant portion of the Snowcrest Mountain Range is proposed for wilderness under Tester’s bill, wilderness without wildlife is a bad deal.
6. Finally, we have numerous suggestions for additional inclusions of wilderness lands that are begging for protection, but we are not confident that ours and other voices in this debate will be heard in a meaningful manner.
There is no evidence that the grizzly population in the Yaak is 'spiralling downward"
this quote is indicative of your failure to grasp the real issues.
Tester made a campign promise to protect ALL remaining roadless areas in MT. A court today upheld the most commented, supported and popular env. ruling in history the roadless rule. Beofre you pat yourslef on the back and claim your getting things dont "on the ground" maybe you should realize your just a sell out corporate green or at the least spewing their dispicable rhetoric.
there is a lot of evidence to support the cabinet/yaak grizzlies imminent demise. Even the forest service acknowledges there is a 93% chance the pop. will decrease in 5-10yrs. Why do you think they have to keep intorducing bears from the whitefish range. The bears are genetically isolated and the bears that used to naturally roam from the whitefish and other ranges anymore cant because too many lands were "compromised" by folks like tester and yourself.
Regarding: "Our hope is that it will become a template for resolving other long-standing debates in the West over how best to use and protect public lands. We encourage Montanans to read the bill, make the suggestions they deem appropriate to improve it, and--at the end of the day--to support this approach toward finding win-win solutions, rather than endless stalemate and conflict."
We need to talk as the stipulation from page 58 of the bill indeed does preserve not only the domestic sheep trailing through the Snowcrest Mountains but the motorized access necessary to complete this incompatible use.
From page 58 & 59:
SNOWCREST WILDERNESS AREA.—With respect to the Snowcrest Wilderness Area, nothing in this title affects -
(B) subject to reasonable requirements to protect the wilderness values of the Snowcrest Wilderness Area, historical motorized access to trail sheep.
NREPA was created by scientists, rangers, ranchers etc.
I'm sure there are plenty of coffe-drinkers in that crowd as well before steve kelly puts a sterotype around that entire movement.
NREPA was open to compromise and still can work. With the ruling yesterday upholding the roadless rule (minus ID, CO & AK) it looks more difficult to push through tester's logging bill.
Rejoice
If tom and the national wildlife federation apply these principals to other places as he boldy suggests you can say goodbye to all the griz, wolverines etc etc
If the regional executive director for the wildlife federation is this much of a flake I think we need some new leadership for widlife, wilderness besides ones that suckle out of the pew trust teet.
Thanks for reminding me to never attempt humor on a blog, it just never quite translates. Stereotyping was certainly not my intent. Why sweat the cosmetics when substance is what matters most?
that makes absolutley no sense and has no logic. The bears in the cabinet/yaak population were not transplanted they are the last ones left struggling to survivie amidst your demand of roads up every drainage, over every pass, through every meadow in the name of motoriized "acess". The cabinet/Yaak population of griz IS the most endangered population of grizzlies in north america.
Grizzlies in NW Montana, northern ID and Eastern WA are most cetinly isolated and endagered. Your rights are not taken away if they close a few roads to save a species of bear. Think about how much freedom you really have in america and stop whining and acting like the feds. are taking away all your rights by closing a few roads that the fs cant maintain, the public does not want to spen their taxes on anymore and last according to your importance the survival of an entire species.
To say we need to have a roadless area for the bears is a idea made up by someone who dosnt live in bear areas. I live on mt hy 35 and have grizzlys in the backyard several times each year. In the last year 6 grizzlys have been trapped within 5 miles of my house clearly the roads are not a major problem with those bears.
The major part of the crowd that wants the roadless area are folks that dont live in the western states. Why cant they worry about their own backyard.