(c) 1998,2006 by Peter Berck 1

Forestry and the Environment

By Peter BerckUniversity of California,Berkeley

The story of forestry in the West.Role of LawsKey rule: Oldgrowth can only be cut

once in every 400 or so years It is exhaustible for all practical

purposes It can’t provide a constant supply of

jobs forever

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Multiple Use is Unavoidable on Forests

Water quantity insensitive to management but quality can be affected by management

Recreationalists can’t be excluded but can be encouraged with facilities

Wildlife lives there anyway but clearcuts favor game; no cuts favor

owls

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Multiple Use: Which Use Shall Be Master

American Politics drives multiple use management in the forests of the West.

There are three distinct political and management regimes: Pre, During, and Post Owl

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Postwar and Pre-Owl

Political agreement on timberInformal tools--discretion

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Planning: Old Style

Planner professional

forester knowledge of

resource

Owner preferences over

uses supplies capital

Planning job determine

preferences determine budget find best plan among

feasible plans easily amenable to

programming formulation, but there was no need to do so!

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The Catch for USFS

The catch was that there needed to be an owner. A close substitute would be wide consensus on the appropriate goals and a political willingness to let the planner determine the goals within that consensus.

Before ~1970, management of the Forests was not so contentious.

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Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960

Multiple Uses recreation range timber watershed wildlife fish

(later wilderness is added)

No one use is to predominate

“High level annual … output

without impairment of the productivity of the land”

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Agency Freedom

The USFS had ample latitude to operate forests as it wished under MUSY of 1960.

The act codified what USFS was doing anyway.

The Agency was trusted and political consensus was pretty high.

This was easy because there were substantial areas untouched by cutting.

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Old Stated Objectives

Community Stability: JOBS coincident with mill

profits

Supply of Fiber (that’s wood)

Recreation Game and Fish Scenic Drives Hiking

Went together: More wood is more

jobs is more open forest is more game

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Wilderness Act (1964)

FS had designated wilderness on its own and was now constrained by law on those areas.

Forced to study additional lands for inclusion.

Large single purpose reserves went against the Multiple Use grain.

The Planner would not decide which lands to reserve

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Politics and Formalized Planning

Oddly played out through acts thought to innocuous or planning acts National Environmental Policy Act Endangered Species Act Resource Planning Act

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NEPA

Before a major federal action can be taken, the agency must Get public comment on issues to be consideredMake a plan (Environmental Impact

Statement) and several alternative plans including do nothing

Get public comment on the plansChoose a preferred alternative

This was not thought to be radical legislation.

NEPA 1969 Title 1 Sec 102:

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(C) include in every recommendation or report on proposals for legislation and other major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment, a detailed statement by the responsible official on --(i) the environmental impact of the proposed action,(ii) any adverse environmental effects which cannot be avoided should the proposal be implemented,(iii) alternatives to the proposed action,(iv) the relationship between local short-term uses of man's environment and the maintenance and enhancement of long-term productivity, and (v) any irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources which would be involved in the proposed action should it be implemented.Prior to making any detailed statement, the responsible Federal official shall consult with and obtain the comments of any Federal agency which has jurisdiction by law or special expertise with respect to any environmental impact involved. Copies of such statement and the comments and views of the appropriate Federal, State, and local agencies, which are authorized to develop and enforce environmental standards, shall be made available to the President, the Council on Environmental Quality and to the public as provided by section 552 of title 5, United States Code, and shall accompany the proposal through the existing agency review processes;

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Resource Planning Act (‘74)

Resource assessment at the National level

Targets for Regions and ForestsPlans to meet those targetsThis act was a way for the FS to get

long term agreement by Congress on goals and for the Industry to get a clear mandate to produce wood.

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RPA Didn’t work

Environmentalists wanted more wildland than the FS was planning for.

Monongahela Decision: Resurrected language in 100 year old law that made it necessary to consider each tree before cutting.

Clear need for new legislation

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National Forest Management Act (1976)

Political compromise Non-declining flow

Couldn’t cut less one decade than in the previous decade, at least in plan.

meant to preserve oldgrowthwould only delay cut out

cmai

CMAICulmination of mean annual increment

• Time when timber per year is biggest• Trees grow faster when young

meant to put teeth into sustained yieldecologically meaningless: trees still too

small to preserve oldgrowth dependent species

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Endangered Species Act(’73)

Can’t take animal, even on private land Take includes remove habitat Must list habitat to be protected Leads to legal question: when does

regulation become confiscation of property?Current answer is when no economic use

possibleBut watch the current court!

Clean Water Act (’72 as ammended.)

Total Maximum Daily Loads of things like silt established for waterways that don’t meet fishable/swimable just through use of BAT/BPT effluent standards.

Restricts harvest and harvest method near streams. Road surface area (dirt), culverts, and so on.

Just coming into full force.20

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Taking vs. Police Power

May regulate land use (no factories in the Berkeley hills.

What about a zoning for open space? probably meets “no economic use” especially if right to exclude others is gone even temporary denial is a taking

Can’t use law for other purpose: you can’t have a building permit unless you

give the county the area around the stream

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Participation

RPA Interdisciplinary Teams (Regs. Restored

supervisors power) Public comment Full written disclosure to public

ESA Public right to sue to protect animals

Public could see and could sue

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Formal Planning

Under NFMA and RPA, formal planning for multiple use was carried out by linear programming.

The basic idea was to maximize present value of timber, subject to CMAI, non-declining flow, and other constraints.

The Spotted Owl became the most celebrated constraint

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Traditional Problems with Planning

Find the Cut Plans were not

spatial Foresters still had to

designate specific parcels to be cut

Hard to see cumulative effect of decisions because of mapping technology

The problem (Hrubes) The cuttable land base

was much smaller than the planned land base because of streams, Indian burial grounds, needed habitat, etc.

Difference only discovered when “finding the cut”

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Allowable Cut Effect

To get nondeclining flow cut oldgrowth now plan to cut

unprofitable trees later When later comes,

make new plan and don’t cut remote trees

Thus cut declines under non-declining constraint.

Industry likes this. They get more wood

Environmentalists hate this. They see oldgrowth cut down sooner.

It is an example of “no commitment”

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Forest Plans Took Forever

Not innocent: Old plans used while waiting. Once it was clear that the plans would

call for less timber, industry and Republican administration did not want plans to be final

Environmentalists obliged by obstructing plans for their goals.

(graphic on how much plans did to cut)

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Semi-primitive

WILD AND SCENIC RIVER

RECREATION AREA

Visual retention

Private Land

Timber emphasis

Bald eagle habitat

Goshawk habitat

Spotted owl habitat

Partial Visual ret.

Minimal management

Owl Lead-up

FS released draft EIS on owl in August of 1986, 5% cut reduction

Final EIS April 1988, little less than 5% ASQ reduction

But, this wasn’t enough to comply with the law to protect the Owl, which wasn’t even yet officially “threatened”

http://www.sweet-home.or.us/forest/owl/index.html

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Injunction

March, 1989. Order restraining the FS from offering 139 planned sales.

Yaffee (Wisdom of the Spotted Owl) takes this as the pivotal action There was a FS owl plan before this

Point at which the Owl became primary

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Listing of the Owl

June 1989, proposed listing of Owl as threatened in Fed. Register

June 1990 listed, but no critical habitat

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Congress in the Act

No stranger control Non-sustainable

ASQ as far back as Carter

1984 BailoutBecause of inflation,

companies bid too much for timber; Congress released them from their contracts withou full penalties.

Hatfield-Adams1989. Prescribed the

sale for (fiscal)‘89-’909.6 billion bd ftstreamlined appeals--

SEIS not subject to judicial

no temp restrain or prelim injunct on fisc ‘90 timber sales

deadlines for judicial review; special masters

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Interagency Scientific Committee

Future Chief Thomas, a biologist and others

April 4 1990 Reduce harvest levels in owl area by 30-

40% (Radall O’Toole tells this story

differently—he sees it as the rise of the ologists as the masters of the usfs)

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Listing of Habitat May ‘91

Fish and Wildlife complies with ESA (finally) Takes ISC report and enshrines it in law critical habitat 11.6 million acres of which 3 million were private

Small administration counterattack 1992 G_d Squad exempts small number

of sales for BLM

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FEMAT: Option 9

“ecosystem management plan,” holistic, adaptive

Option 9 is response to summit in april ‘93Timber: year 1, 2 b bdf; then 1.7 b bdf then

decline to near 1 billion in the long run so it averaged to 1.2 b bdf over 10 years.

About 90% reduction from the all time highs

adaptive managementlocal communities and agencies

still protects owls

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Presidents (Clinton)Forest Plan

Is Option 9Less timberMore attention to “ecosystem”GIS is in.Adaptive management (though I

can’t currently define it.)

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Congress Sets Cut Directly (again)

Salvage Rider (good for two years)Response to destructive firesResponse to declining cut

Under the logging provision, the U.S. Forest Service is directed to double the cutting of dead and dying trees in national forests over the next 18 months. The agency would be virtually unhindered by the Endangered Species Act and other laws protecting wildlife, and timber sales would be exempt from court challenge. (Bee, JULY 27, 1995)

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Murrelets

The marbled murrelet was listed as threatened on October 1, 1992

It nests in older redwood trees.Various species of trout and salmon

are also listed as endangered.Endangered species also live on

private land.

The Murrelet lives inthe valuable timber. ESAprohibits cutting. A Dealfor Headwaters got hammeredOut with state and fed $

Map Copyright © 1998 California Resources Agency. All rights reserved.

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Headwaters Deal

US and State bought Headwaters for $250 m (fed) + $130 m (state)

Agree to Habitat Conservation Plan for rest of PL’s holdings.

Does the HCP enable of hinder PL? Headwaters sold for less than market Environmentalist complaint about

Salmon habitat continues

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Stakeholder Processes

Get the interested parties into room Bargaining in shadow of the law

ESAPolitical power

Clausowitz: War is the continuation of politics by other means

Republicans and Environmentalists ascendant at same time

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Quincy Library Group

Locals (Jobs/Timber/Fire) try to get Congress to accept their view over

National Conservation Organizations (Animals/Oldgrowth)

in planning for N. Sierra Forests Big Issue is condition: Locals want

thinning to reduce fire risk Is an “adaptive management”

experiment

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New Emphasis on Stock

Agency and AdministrationProtect Wildlife per se (stock): owls

and FishFire (stock): reduce hazard for wood

and for communitiesCreate “healthy,” “natural,” or

“diverse” forest (stock) get back to pre-european conditions

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Counterpoint

Republican and CongressionalJOBS (flow)Timber (flow)But, Jobs makes much better politics

than timber.