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Northwest Forest Plan
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 |
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