Forests & People - Transparent Forest Planning

Forest Management Becomes Transparent

The 1976 National Forest Management Act made a big difference concerning management of the National Forests.  It requires every National Forest have a plan that shows clearly the kinds of management activities that will be done and where.  For example some areas are suitable and available for timber harvesting, some are suitable, but not available because of conflict with other uses or needs.  It’s not an easy thing to wrap your head around, but think of it as zoning, some areas are good for several kinds of uses, growing commercial timber crops, wildlife habitat and watershed.  Another area may be so valuable for watershed that timber management activities are greatly modified to put first priority on improving soil health and water quality.  The law requires that Forest Plans be done with public input.  The Forest Service forest planning effort took that seriously, nation-wide there has been more public input to forest planning than any other public activity, other than Presidential elections.

Forest plans combined forest science with public values and they describe the issues, the goals and the objectives.  The plans put costs to alternative management strategies and selects the management strategy that will be followed.  That is good, planning is good, transparent planning is good, but there has been a down side.  The planning effort that the National Forest Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act require has led to never-ending litigation.  When the Forest Service or other government agency decides on an action or a project whether it is, a road, a timber harvest, a recreation development, wildlife improvement project -- whatever it is, someone or some group will oppose the project and take the agency to court to stop it.  Lawsuits often claim the Environmental Impact Statement is insufficient, even though it may include scores or hundreds of pages of scientific data, conclusions and recommendations concerning the project. This process puts forest management decisions into the legal arena where a judge will make decisions biased on legal words, not need, not cost, not good science.  How in the world did we come to that as a way to make good decisions?  Natural resources sciences are taking a back seat in federal forests and natural resource decision-making.  No matter who wins these cases, years of court delay are normal, so when projects involving time-sensitive issues, like salvaging fire killed timber before it rots, wildlife improvements, controlling insect outbreaks, the reason for doing the project may be lost by the legal delays.    

Legal challenges have reduced the flow of forest products and services from the National Forests and other federal lands so effectively it has become a well worn strategy.  However, the nation’s demand for wood has not decreased, so we take more wood from private land and, more import, from other countries.  Trees  grown on private forest land and certainly wood imported from other countries is not normally managed for multiple use benefits.  So, by using a greater proportion of wood from private land and other countries, it may be reckoned, results in greater environmental damage to the Earth than the perceived damage that initiates a lawsuit against a project on US public lands.  (Read that sentence again and think about it.)   Look to the tropical forests and the destruction to wildlife habitat that is occurring in many countries, consider the carbon sequestering that is being lost with the reduction of the tropical forests, the associated burning that adds carbon to the atmosphere.  We need to think beyond boundaries when considering what is best for our forests, the critters, natural beauty, the soil, the water and the products that come from and depend on healthy forests.