Tangled laws create forest gridlock
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March 8, 2013 |
By State Forester David Groeschl
Ask Idahoans if they value healthy forests and
you’ll likely get an affirmative response. Ask
them how to manage for healthy forests and
you’ll likely get a wide range of opinions.
Therein lays the challenge for the U.S. Forest
Service and other federal land managers. A
tangled web of federal laws and policies
designed to guide the management of most
federally managed forestlands in Idaho often
leaves professional land managers in the
unenviable position of trying to be all things
to all people on all acres.
The result is gridlock.
Governor Otter recently traveled to Washington,
D.C., to urge a House subcommittee to support
setting aside a specific national forest in
Idaho for a pilot project under a trust
management model as a way to address the
gridlock.
As State Forester, I oversee management of one
million forested acres of the total 2.4 million
acres of state endowment trust lands in Idaho.
The Idaho Department of Lands (IDL) and the Land
Board manage these lands under a trust model
mandate grounded in Idaho’s constitution. Our
mission is clear: to “maximize long-term
financial returns” to public schools and other
constitutionally designated public institutions.
Meeting our mission requires ongoing stewardship
of endowment trust lands. Tree planting
following a harvest and leaving in place seed
trees for natural regeneration are examples of
that long-term stewardship. Stewardship also
means we follow all state and federal
environmental laws aimed at protecting water,
air quality, and habitat. In fact, recent water
quality audits show harvest activities on state
lands have a 99 percent rate of compliance with
standards set forth in the Idaho Forest
Practices Act and accompanying administrative
rules.
Legal roadblocks to achieving our land
management objectives are limited because the
law dictates for us one type of dominant use
paradigm – active management to produce revenues
for schools.
The benefits of a trust management model in
reducing fire-prone fuels, enhancing economic
activity and creating jobs, and improving forest
health undoubtedly are the Governor’s driving
motives in urging this approach. It is the
dominant use concept that makes the trust model
so effective in achieving well defined land
management objectives.
Even wilderness areas are managed under a
dominant use model, as are national recreation
areas, national parks, and roadless areas,
lessening the likelihood of litigation when the
Forest Service makes a decision in keeping with
the prescribed management of those lands.
But roughly seven million acres managed by the
Forest Service in Idaho have no defined dominant
use to drive effective management.
On these seven million acres, most actions the
Forest Service deems necessary to improve the
health of the land – for instance, using timber
harvest as a management tool to remove
vegetation to promote growth of desired tree
species – need to comply with onerous procedural
requirements and are met with reams of paperwork
to withstand an appeal. Former Chief of the
Forest Service Dale Bosworth termed it,
“analysis paralysis.”
Additionally, a
recent study of the U.S. Government
Accountability Office showed that Region 1 of
the Forest Service, which includes northern
Idaho, lead with the most appeals and lawsuits
on federal projects involving fuel reduction
activities than any other region of the Forest
Service during Fiscal Years 2006 through 2008.
Region 1 is facing 10 timber sales with active
lawsuits and was even blocked on a collaborative
stewardship project because of perceived threats
to lynx habitat, according to
one article following an interview with the
Region 1 Forester.
As past Forest Service Chiefs have pointed out,
including Jack Ward Thomas, without a clear
mission or mandate from Congress, the Forest
Service is left longing for how to define and
measure success.
We may not all agree on how to manage public
lands, but at least the establishment of a
dominant use model in addition to wilderness and
roadless areas for some of our federally
forested lands in Idaho, as Governor Otter
suggested, would create realistic expectations
and a clear mission for Forest Service land
managers to achieve the economic, ecological,
and social benefits we all seek. |
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