August 6, 2003 Dunsmuir News/ Mt. Shasta Live!.com


EX-FOREST SERVICE CHIEF CRITICAL OF FOREST PLAN


By MSL Staff

VALLEJO, Ca. - A recently-completed report prepared for USDA's Forest
Service (FS) concludes that the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) has
failed to fulfill its economic promise to the people and communities
of northern California.

Pacific Southwest Regional Forester Jack Blackwell, who conducted a
review of how the plan has been applied in California, said he found
the results "even worse than we had thought." At a Tuesday meeting in
Portland, he told the Regional Interagency Executive Committee, which
oversees the NWFP, that the plan is not working in northern
California.

As the NWFP approaches its 10th anniversary, Blackwell asked the
individual who was most involved in its early development to join him
in the review. Jack Ward Thomas served on a number of influential
committees, mostly in a leadership role, that developed assessments
and possible courses of action that led up to the plan.

Thomas became Chief of the FS in 1993 during the Clinton
Administration, and retired from the agency in 1996. He is currently a
professor at the University of Montana in Missoula and an
internationally respected wildlife biologist.

The resulting hard-hitting report by Thomas highlighted problems
across the board with the NWFP in northern California.

In general, Thomas said that the NWFP has been "overcome by events,"
and that the processes undertaken to implement it are taking far
longer and are more cumbersome and expensive than originally intended.
As a result, he said "the results and actions underway no longer even
resemble what was anticipated at the time of adoption."

"While I am pleased to see that the plan has protected the northern
spotted owl over the short term, it concerns me that we have not
achieved the equally important promise of providing people and
communities with a sustainable supply of wood," Blackwell said.
"Furthermore, the report warns that the relative lack of management
will create long-term environmental problems, including even greater
fire risk."

Delays in the Northwest Forest Plan's schedule for thinning dense
stands of younger trees exposes them to an unnatural fire risk,
Blackwell said. High-intensity fires can destroy the smaller trees
that would have otherwise replaced the larger trees, as they are
inevitably lost to age and other natural events.

One specific problem cited in Thomas's report is the high cost and
complexity of survey and manage requirements. Those rules create
delays due to the huge number of non-threatened species, including
invertebrates such as snails and non-vascular plants such as lichens,
that must be exhaustively surveyed before management activities can
occur. Those delays have hampered needed fuel reduction, both near
communities and in other areas where the NWFP said thinning is needed.

Thomas said the survey and manage requirements have turned out to be
"quite expensive overkill," in terms of costly requirements and
delays, because non-threatened species are identified as being "at
risk" and deserving protection until proven otherwise.

He said this turns the concept of the Endangered Species Act, wherein
species are declared as threatened or endangered only after scientific
evaluation of evidence, "inside-out." Thomas said that survey and
manage was one of several "bells and whistles" added later in the NWFP
decision-making process that reduced its chances of working as
originally planned.

Thomas also noted the sometimes overwhelming difficulty that
professional land managers encounter as they work to actively manage
the land. Thomas' report reminded managers that the NWFP called for
active management to protect wildlife habitat and communities. He
cited laborious bureaucratic processes, appeals, litigation, high
costs and other factors as barriers to that management.

Riparian (streamside) reserves are not being adjusted as planned,
Thomas said, because "prerequisite watershed analyses have taken far
longer, cost far more, and have resulted in far less change than was
originally anticipated."

Thomas also found shortcomings in how management has been slow to test
new ideas in designated Adaptive Management Areas, as the NWFP also
specified.

"This plan was intended to be a flexible document, and it acknowledged
the need for management that would adapt to new information," Thomas
said. "The Forest Service has been slow to make adjustments,
particularly in the area of dealing with the growing fire danger in
northern California."

The review covered 4.5 million acres of NF's in northern California
(the Mendocino, Klamath, Six Rivers and Shasta-Trinity NF's, and
portions of the Modoc and Lassen NF's), where the NF's are hotter and
drier, and therefore more susceptible to fire than other areas also
covered by the NWFP. The entire plan covers NF's and other federal
lands on 24.5 million acres in California, Oregon and Washington.

Blackwell told the interagency committee Tuesday that he wants very
much to resolve the complex internal and external factors that have
led to the current situation. While it may be impossible for him to
address all of the problems, he expects to use the report and the FS's
findings from the review to produce an action plan soon, outlining
possible courses of action. These will use existing authorizations
under the NWFP, in such areas as consultations with other agencies and
ongoing analysis of proposed changes to survey and manage
requirements.

The five-day review in late June included two days of field trips.
Participating were American Indian tribal members, county supervisors,
environmental organizations, timber workers, mill owners,
congressional staffers, educators and FS personnel. Blackwell strongly
encouraged anyone who is interested in the future of the ecosystems
and communities of northern California to read the full report and
associated materials at www.fs.fed.us/r5/nwfp .

Comment by poster: Personally, I think we need to dump the old plan
and make a new one that addresses real world problems and simplifies
important management decisions. I'd also be in favor of eliminating
the potential for cutting trees in the 40-59" dbh range that are
currently available under Clinton's plan. I've worked on a project
under the plan and was aghast at the destructiveness of the type of
logging allowable under the plan. Even though this kind of logging is
in exchange for preservation of other areas, I don't think we should
be "trading" pieces of land and their management plans. Plenty of
environmentally sound projects can keep woods workers busy for quite
some time.

Larry, a true environmentalist