Northwest Forest Plan Review

Plans & Reports

Sustainability of the Northwest Forest Plan –

Dynamic vs. Static Management

Prepared for the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region Review of Northwest Forest Plan Implementation by Jack Ward Thomas, Boone and Crockett Professor of Conservation, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, June 23, 2003

Abstract

Failure to address the obvious developing collision between cutting and fragmentation of old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest led to the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) in 1994. As adopted, the NWFP was considerably more restrictive than “Option 9” from the report of the Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment Team from which it was chosen by President Clinton and from which it was adopted. In spite of considerable additional constraints on management, the projected timber yields were only slightly less than those in Option 9. “Survey and Manage” protocols for sensitive species in old-growth stands scheduled for cutting essentially removed such stands from the timber base. Further, this requirement converted the “coarse filter” approach prescribed in Option 9 to a much more expensive and operationally tedious “fine filter” approach to accounting for sensitive species. Other actions, such as: failure to manage Adaptive Management Areas any differently; reluctance to adjust “fail safe” riparian buffer along streams following watershed analysis; failure to manage within riparian buffers; failure to aggressively manage within Late Successional Reserves (LSRs) in fire prone areas; and lack of thinning in younger stands inside of LSRs essentially revised the NWFP from a dynamic management approach to one of essentially static management. The anticipated adaptive management failed to materialize, and “no action” has become the dominant reality. Resultant failure to even approach the forecast timber yields and the consequences of the fires of 2000 and 2002 have provided stimulus to reexamine the question of dynamic versus static management approaches.

Introduction

The Northwest Forest Plan was driven by the need to meet the requirements of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (P.L. 86-517, 74 Stat. 215) and the “viability clause” of the USDA Forest Service’s (FS) regulations issued pursuant to the National Forest Management Act of 1976 (P.L. 94-588, 90 Stat. 2949). The primary mention of “sustainability” of production of outputs from the national forests occurs in the Multiple-Use Sustained Yield (MUSY) Act of 1960 (P.L. 86-517, 74 Stat. 215) which broadened the FS’s mandate to include outdoor recreation, range, and wildlife in addition to the timber supply and watershed protection concerns expressed in the Organic Administration Act of 1897 (30 Stat. 11).

“Sustained yield” was defined in the 1960 MUSY Act as “… the achievement and maintenance in perpetuity of a high level annual or regular output of the various natural resources of the national forests without impairment of the productivity of the land.” By the late 1980’s, a series of federal court decisions had made it clear that compliance with the legal requirements of later passed laws and regulations (specifically those of the 1973 Endangered Species Act) overrode those directions.

Any discussion of “sustainability” related to the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) must begin with some understanding of the history related to the development and execution (or lack thereof) of the Plan. The basic work underlying the Plan was produced by the Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment Team (FEMAT) established by the direction of President William Clinton through the auspices of the Forest Conference Executive Committee composed of ten department and agency heads.

The Executive Committee quoted President Clinton’s observations made at the conclusion of the Forest Summit held in Portland, Oregon, in the spring of 1993 and provided the FEMAT these directions:
1. Consider human and economic dimensions of the problem solution;
2. Protect the long-term health of forests, wildlife, and waterways;
3. Efforts should be scientifically sound, ecologically credible, and legally responsible;
4. Produce a predictable and sustainable level of timber sales and non-timber resources that will not degrade the environment;
5. Employ and emphasize collaboration in management as opposed to confrontation.

In addition, FEMAT (1993) was instructed to minimize impacts on non-federal land; make suggestions for adaptive management; examine silvicultural management to achieve objectives; use an ecosystem management approach; and, apply the “viability standard” from the FS’s planning regulations of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands.

When addressing biological diversity, FEMAT (1993) was instructed to maintain and restore habitat conditions for the northern spotted owl (Strix caurina occidentalis) and the marbled murrelet (Brachyramphus marmoratum); maintain and restore habitat conditions to support viable populations, well-distributed across current ranges, of all species known or reasonably expected to be associated with old-growth habitat conditions; and maintain and/or restore spawning and rearing habitat to support recovery and maintenance of viable populations of anadromous fish species and other fish species considered “sensitive” or “at risk” on federal lands; and maintain or create a connected, interactive, old-growth forest ecosystem on federal lands.

No planning and assessment team that has ever dealt with forest management has ever been handed a more complex and daunting task. In addition, this “mission impossible” was to be accomplished in 60 days (later expanded to 90 days).

In short, when dealing with the habitat of a threatened species designated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) or the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the paramount concern with sustainability focused on those species, no matter the odds of success. Other concerns, such as sustainability of timber production, moved to a subordinate position. As a result, a sustainable yield of wood products was but one desired outcome of the NWFP.

That is, any “slack” in meeting mandated outputs were in the form of timber yields. Consistent reluctance, from 1973-1990, to come to grips with the realities of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) resulted in on-going and dramatic declines in the anticipated timber yields as continued cutting of old-growth forests reduced management options due to the combination of habitat loss and coincidental fragmentation.

I will describe the circumstances that led to the development of the NWFP. And, then, describe the circumstances that resulted in failure of the NWFP to meet expectations. I conclude with recommendations for alternatives in current management.

A Bit of History Sets the Stage

Tracing the management of the federal forests in the Pacific Northwest since 1973 is a painful, embarrassing, and agonizing story of the government’s reluctance to comply with the ESA and the “viability clause.” Consider the ESA’s purpose. “…to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species may be conserved, (and) to provide a program for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species…” Add to that the requirements of the “viability clause” of the FS’s planning regulations (which have force of law) which reads, “Viable populations of all native, and desirable non-native vertebrates, will be maintained, well distributed within the planning area” (36 CFR Ch. II; 7-1-91 Edition, 219.19).

The viability requirement which, by order of President Clinton, was applied to all federal lands within the purview of the NWFP was more constraining than the ESA. It was increasingly clear by the mid-1980s that the issue would come to crisis over old-growth forests.

By the mid-1980s, most of the old growth on private lands had been logged. Cutting of old growth shifted to federal lands and continued apace. The idea was to take up the slack in national timber supply and maintain the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest until timber again became available from the private land cut over prior to 1980. This scheme made sense from the commercial forestry/economic/employment and, therefore, from the political point of view.

However, unforeseen by land management agency leadership and political operatives, concern over the ecological and aesthetic effects of the rapid diminution and fragmentation of old growth was rapidly growing among Forest Service and BLM biologists. This concern was mirrored in an environmental community that was exploding in numbers and influence.

The beauty and venerable age of old-growth forests allowed for considerable hyperbole in debate (e.g., “old trees some of which were alive at the birth of Christ, etc.”) relative to the rapid diminution of old growth forests. It would have been difficult to find a better cause or a better rallying flag for growing environmental legions.

Enter the Spotted Owl – Stage Right

By the late 1980s, evidence was building that the northern spotted owl was closely associated with old-growth forests and declining in numbers and viability as old growth was being inexorably cut and coincidentally fragmented (Thomas et al. 1990). The writing was on the wall and professionals in the FS and the FWS knew it. However, several efforts internal to the FS to address the looming problem were terminated by agency officials (more probably by political overseers) when social, economic, and political costs were considered too great to face.

Oddly, anticipated costs (computed in reductions in timber harvest and associated economic activity) were minute compared to what would finally ensue. There was a lesson to be learned. When coming to grip with the requirements of the ESA it is likely to be much less costly to act quickly than to delay. Options quickly disappear, making more draconian responses necessary in the end.

The Interagency Scientific Committee

By 1989, it was clear that the northern spotted owl would eventually be determined to be “threatened” by the FWS. Resistance to that inevitability was increasingly embarrassing and less legally tenable. The agency heads of the FS (Dale Robertson), FWS (John Turner), BLM (Cyrus Jamison), and the National Park Service (James Ridenour) named a select team of biologists, the Interagency Scientific Team (ISC), to devise a management strategy for the northern spotted owl. Team members were Jack Ward Thomas (Chairman), Eric Forsman, Barry Noon, and Jared Verner of the FS, E. Charles Meslow of the FWS, and Joseph Lint of the BLM. The ISC warned that the old-growth ecosystem was the developing issue, not the survival of a subspecies of owl. These concerns and recommendations were ignored.

A reading of the purpose of the ESA clearly revealed the looming and inevitable problem that would have to be faced: the old-growth ecosystem. The ISC was instructed to confine its prescriptions to public lands. This decision was to carry through all successive proposals and plans. Adverse economic impacts were to be absorbed on public lands and constraints on private lands were to be avoided to the extent possible. That decision made little ecological sense but it was politically, and economically, astute. Private landowners got off cheap – very cheap – under the ISC strategy relative to what would have been an optimal ecological solution.

The ISC report (Thomas et al. 1990) established a premise upon which all subsequent planning efforts were based. Clearly, any biologically viable and legally defensible plan to sustain old growth and northern spotted owls would begin with forests in old-growth condition and containing owls. This was made necessary by the simple fact that it can take hundreds of years for stands to reach the age and structural conditions typical of old growth.

And, because old-growth stands would surely decline in amount over longer time frames due to stochastic stand-replacing events (e.g., fire, blow down, etc.) it would be necessary to plan and manage for replacement stands appropriately distributed over the landscape. It was also critical to consider amounts, sizing, and spacing of stands over very long time frames.

Almost simultaneously with the release of the ISC’s report, the northern spotted owl was listed as threatened. The more extreme environmentalists were ecstatic. One environmental leader was quoted as saying, “If the spotted had not existed, we would have had to invent it.”

At first blush, all involved agencies accepted the ISC strategy. Then, BLM Director Cyrus Jamison, with the approval of Secretary of Interior Manual Lujan, withdrew BLM lands from the strategy in favor of another approach (the so-called “Jamison Strategy” that was never definitively described.) Legal challenges followed and Federal District Court Judge William Dwyer issued an injunction against cutting of old growth on federal lands within the owl’s range.

What seemed an astute political maneuver became an economic, legal and political disaster. Judge Dwyer, in his opinion, instructed the government to answer two questions. First, would Jamison’s decision render the ISC strategy unlikely to preserve the owl? Second, what would be the effect on the viability of 34 other species that the ISC had noted as associated with old growth? The second question was prescient. Judge Dwyer understood and emphasized the clearly stated purpose of the ESA to preserve ecosystems upon which threatened species depended.

The Scientific Assessment Team

The Scientific Assessment Team (SAT), chaired by Dr. Jack Ward Thomas of the FS, was assigned to answer those questions (Thomas et al. 1993). The SAT believed that the number of species associated with old growth greatly exceeded the 34 species in question and recommended straight forwardly addressing Judge Dwyer’s underlying question.

Agency administrators agreed (Thomas et al. 1993, p 96-97) The SAT’s answer to the first question was that they could not discern what the BLM alternative entailed and therefore could not answer the question. That was a fatal blow to having the injunction lifted. The answer to the second question identified at least 312 plants, 149 invertebrates, 112 stocks of anadromous fish, 4 resident fish, and 90 terrestrial vertebrates as likely associated with old growth (Thomas et al. 1993). In other words, the owl was but the tip of the iceberg. The real question related to the preservation of ecosystems and had been since the enactment of the ESA in 1973, 17 years before. Fully 25 years since the enactment of ESA some still didn’t have the message, or didn’t want to hear it.

Enter the “God Squad”

Cyrus Jamison, BLM’s Director, supported by Secretary of Interior, Manual Lujan, “hung tough” and appealed the matter to the Endangered Species Committee (the so-called “God Squad”) established by the ESA (16 U.S.C. 1536(e)-(h)) to determine if the economic/social/political costs of preserving a threatened species were unbearable enough to accept extinction of the species or sub-species in question. In this case, the fate of 44 timber sales in old-growth forests relative to survival of the northern spotted owl was at question. The God Squad is composed of the Secretary of Interior (who is also Chair), Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Secretary of the Army, and one representative from each affected state.

The God Squad squirmed, flinched, and, in a politically humiliating “split the baby” decision, approved a handful of sales with the proviso that BLM would, thereafter, comply with the ISC strategy (Thomas et al. 1993). Still reluctant to accept the ISC strategy, the George Herbert Walker Bush Administration deferred action until after the presidential election of 1992. In the meantime, the ISC and its report were put “on trial” internally by the administrative branch and subjected to several additional outside reviews. The ISC survived unscathed, save for political pounding by some members of Congress.

The “Gang of Four”

The House Agriculture Committee, then, quickly attempted to formulate a legislative solution. Chairman Kika De La Garza of Texas named a four-person committee (pejoratively tagged “The Gang of Four” by a timber industry spokesman) to develop management options for federal forests within the range of the northern spotted owl for the consideration of Congress. The Gang (which was immediately enlarged to six to deal with fisheries issues) was charged with assessing the economic/social consequences of each of the alternatives developed. Members included Drs. John Gordon of Yale, Jerry Franklin of the University of Washington, K. Norman Johnson of Oregon State University, and Jack Ward Thomas, James Sedell, and Gordon Reeves of the FS. The Chairman of the Forestry Subcommittee of the House Committee on Agriculture, Harold Volkmer of Missouri, warned the Gang not to let the Committee “get surprised by some damned fish.” The playing field was thereby enlarged. The Gang delivered some 40 options for the Committee’s consideration. In the end, the House Agriculture Committee deemed the issue “too hot to handle” and also deferred to the presidential election.

The Presidential Election of 1992

The issue of the northern spotted owl and protection of old growth on public lands were significant issues in the 1992 presidential campaign in Washington, Oregon and California. Candidates President George H. W. Bush and H. Ross Perot took a “Jobs vs. owls” approach with a promise to revise the constraining laws following their election. Candidate Governor William Clinton took no clearly definable position but promised a solution to the impasse shortly after taking office. Clinton carried both Oregon and Washington with a minority of the votes cast in the election. In the spring of 1993, newly installed President Clinton convened the Forest Summit in Portland, Oregon.

Forest Ecosystem Assessment Team (FEMAT)

Testifying at the Forest Summit, the leader of the ISC, SAT, and Gang of Four, Jack Ward Thomas, said, “Mr. President, the overriding purpose of the management of the public lands has evolved to be the preservation of biodiversity. If you agree with that outcome, you and the Congress should confirm that outcome. If not, you and the Congress need to clarify the purpose of the management of those lands.” Such clarification has yet to emerge. As a result the pitched debate over the management of those lands continues to this day.

Speaking at the close of the Forest Summit, President Clinton named yet another team, this time including economists and social and political scientists along with the veterans of earlier efforts from the ranks of wildlife, fisheries, and conservation biologists. Foresters, Geographic Information System specialists, cartographers, ecologists, botanists, entomologists, and other specialists were also included. The team was dubbed the Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment Team (FEMAT), chaired by Jack Ward Thomas, and given 60 days (later expanded to 90 days) to deliver management alternatives, with full assessments of each, to the President for his consideration.

By this time, various runs of salmon (which brought the National Marine Fisheries Service, NMFS, into the game) and the marbled murrelet (another avian species associated with late-successional forests) had been declared to be “threatened.” The House Agriculture Committee’s admonition to the ISC team to “don’t let us get surprised by some damn fish” had proven prescient.

Analyses conducted by the FEMAT (1993) roughly mirrored the earlier efforts of the SAT (Thomas et al, 1993) in that over 1,000 species of plants and animals were suspected to be closely associated with late-successional forest conditions. Again, it was clear that it was the late-successional forest ecosystem that was threatened.

The FEMAT (1993) delivered 10 options to the President. He selected Option 9, which was a dynamic plan formulated around active management. Elements of Option 9 included designation of Late Successional Reserves (LSRs), streamside buffers, and Adaptive Management Areas (AMAs). LSRs (45 in number) were located by the presence of significant amounts of old growth on federal lands.

These LSRs ranged from 8,000 to 136,000 acres and averaged 66,000 acres in size. The amounts of old growth included within LSRs varied widely. The intent was to maintain existing old growth and to manage younger stands within the LSRs to attain the tree size and stand structure resembling old growth, thereby reducing fragmentation over time and increasing the amount of old growth. Most LSRs were designed to ultimately contain at least 20 pairs of northern spotted owls (a number which were anticipated to persist long-term without immigration).

Existing old-growth stands within LSRs were to be preserved and younger stands aggressively managed (i.e., thinned) to speed development of larger, more widely spaced trees to emulate old-growth structure. A coarse filter approach (whereby old-growth stands were assumed to contain associated species) was employed. Old-growth stands occurring in the “matrix” between reserves were available for the cutting of timber except for 80-acre patches around existing owl nests intended to provide for owl nest sites once surrounding stands reached 60-80 years of age and serve as sources to “inoculate” maturing stands with old-growth associated plants and animals.

LSRs in fire-prone forests east of the Cascade crest and in southern Oregon and northern California were to be aggressively managed to reduce risk of stand-replacement fire. Old-growth forests with a return interval for stand-replacement fires of centuries were reserved, in the short term, from active management. All reserves were given highest priority for suppression of wildfire (Thomas et al, 1993).

In addition to the LSRs, streamside buffers, in keeping with the precautionary principle, were designated at double or triple what was expected, on average, to be their final width after adjustments following watershed assessments. These assessments and adjustments were to be quickly completed. The final buffers were to be subject to silvicultural treatment to meet overall objectives (stream shading and bank stabilization, possibly including timber production).

Ten Adaptive Management Areas (AMAs) were designated in various forest types across the range of the northern spotted owl to allow tests of alternative approaches to retaining threatened species. These areas ranged from 83,900 to 399,500 acres in size and totaled 1,306,300 acres.

The Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP)

After FEMAT delivered its report and President Clinton selected Option 9, a second team prepared the required Environmental Impact Statement and the Record of Decision. The result was dubbed the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP). “Bells and whistles” were added that dramatically altered Option 9. Likely, these changes were made to increase the chances that the plan would pass legal muster or, to satisfy concerns of some team members that believed that Option 9 gave too much leeway to managers.

The foremost of these changes involved searching old-growth stands proposed for cutting to determine if “sensitive species” were present – the “survey and manage” approach (USDA and USDI 1994b). If such species were found, adjustments were to be made in the cutting plan to provide protection. In most cases, the proposed sale was simply dropped from consideration. As time passed, it became clear that cutting any old growth was not likely.

The survey and manage protocols represented a dramatic shift from the coarse filter approach in Option 9 (the occurrence of species is predicted by the occurrence of habitat) to a fine-filter (based on actual site specific data). Species associated with old-growth conditions would, with certainty, occur in such stands. Ergo, most (if not all) timber sales proposed for old-growth stands would either be foregone or altered. And, huge additional costs were inevitable, thereby negatively influencing economic viability of such sales. Clearly, Option 9 assumed that the old-growth stands released for cutting in the matrix would, indeed, be cut and the viability assessments were inclusive of that fact. In essence, Option 9 was morphed essentially to Option 1 – known to FEMAT as the “green dream” in which all old growth was to be protected.

Yet, the projected timber sale quantity in Option 9 (1.2 billion board feet per year) declined by less than 1 per cent in the NWFP (1.1 billion board feet per year). The accuracy of the new timber yield projections was challenged internally, led by the FS Chief Jack Ward Thomas, when the Record of Decision was presented in Washington, D.C., to Council on Environmental Quality Chair Katie McGinty; Under Secretary of Agriculture James Lyons; FS Chief Thomas; BLM Director Michael Dombeck; and various staff. The protests were ignored. The modifications to Option 9 specifying additional process (e.g., survey and manage protocols) prior to harvest of old growth in the matrix between reserves was accepted by the Administration without any significant adjustment in the projected timber yields. Ms. Katie McGinty, Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, chaired the meeting.

The NWFP was challenged in court by the wood products industry and the environmental community, each with very different reasons. Judge William Dwyer upheld the NWFP against all challenges, but, as his written opinion made clear, just barely. Some government attorneys believed that without the survey and manage provisos, Judge Dwyer would have rejected the NWFP.

Sustainability of the NWFP

The NWFP was then, simply, not faithfully followed – for whatever reasons. These failures combined to have dramatic effect on the amount of timber produced. The probable sale quantity was projected at 1.1 billion board feet. In reality, timber offered for sale peaked, in 1987, at 880 million board feet and steadily declined to 308 million board feet in 2001. Departures from the NWFP include the following:

1. Cutting in old-growth stands in the matrix between LSRs has been far below projections, and essentially eliminated, due to resistance from the environmental community and the economic and technical consequences of search-and-manage protocols. It would be far more honest and far cheaper to simply accept that no old growth will be cut. Dynamic management was inherent in Option 9 and static management prevailed in the NWFP.
2. AMAs have been, essentially, managed no differently than other areas covered by the NWFP due to reluctance of regulatory agencies to approve habitat modifications or departures from the overall plan. The clear intent of Option 9 was to provide leeway for application of innovative adaptive management. The prevalent “risk aversion” is compatible with neither the intent nor vision that was inherent in the creation of the AMAs. Innovation was prescribed and status quo prevailed.
3. Few of the “default” buffers of uncut forest along streams have been reduced in width nor have silvicultural activities been carried out within the buffers. Watershed assessments were not, and have not been completed in a timely fashion as disagreements between involved agencies and various technical specialists continued unresolved. The only reason that the FEMAT did not provide the protocols anticipated was that time ran out. The FEMAT anticipated that the development of appropriate protocols was a matter of weeks and completion of the task would be accomplished within months. The clear intent of Option 9 was that the buffers would be quickly adjusted and remaining buffers would be subject to appropriate silvicultural manipulation to meet derived objectives. There was absolutely no intention that these buffers remain inviolate.
4. Active management within LSRs to encourage rapid growth and appropriate structure in stands younger than 80 years has been neither vigorously, nor equally, pursued. This was likely the result of costs of sale preparation including attaining acquiescence of regulatory agencies relative to anticipated timber yields; i.e., these were apt to be “deficit sales” with assured and significant opposition, both legal and political. Risk aversion carried the day.
5. It was anticipated that active management would be vigorously pursued in LSRs in fire-influenced landscapes. The FEMAT considered it likely that the development of northern spotted owl habitat in such areas was the result of successful fire suppression over the last century. And, further that retention of such habitat would require both protection from fire and aggressive management to preclude extensive stand-replacing fire. Such active management has been only tentatively pursued due to cost/benefit ratios and opposition from segments of the environmental community. Risk aversion, again, carried the day. This has left these reserves in worsening condition relative to stand-replacement fires, some of which occurred as predicted in 2002. More of the same can be expected.
6. Costs have soared as effort after effort failed to be carried through to execution due to risk averse management, rigid responses by regulatory agencies, appeals, and court actions. FS and BLM personnel who dared push ahead with aggressive management were routinely pilloried by both environmentalists (when action was proposed) and those who profited from timber harvest and processing (when lack of adherence to plan became obvious).

As a result of these combined factors, the NWFP has not, and will never produce the projected timber yields if pursued in its current fashion. Asking whether a plan not followed is “sustainable” is a non sequitur. Would the NWFP, if executed as designed, be sustainable in terms of meeting the requirements of the ESA (and the viability clause of the FS’s planning rule) and producing projected timber yields? Not likely. The projected timber yields were simply unrealistic (which was immediately obvious to astute observers) given the predictable cost increase of prescribed management procedures and the impact of the survey and manage protocols. But, even then, other failures related to the unwillingness to press ahead with the plan against protests from the environmental community might have been at least partially responsible for the shortfalls. Clearly, the Clinton Administration was more concerned with protests from some of the environmental community than with executing the plan as written and approved.

Those observations beg the question, would the NWFP have produced the outcomes predicted if the plan had been pursued as advertised? I had serious doubts, first expressed in 1994 at the meeting described above, that very little or no timber would come to market from old-growth stands in the matrix between LSRs due to the predictable consequences of the survey and manage protocols. Such was as easily predictable as it was inevitable. It would have been more realistic, and far cheaper and more honest, to simply declare all old growth off limits to cutting.

Even then, the question is not whether the NWFP is sustainable in the technical sense (which it may well be if executed as written and sans requirements for survey and manage in old-growth stands in the matrix scheduled for timber harvest). But whether it is sustainable in the political/legal/economic sense (which it has not been) is another question. In short, how can we discuss sustainability of outcomes of a plan that has never been executed and tested? And, are social, political and economic sustainability equally as important as sustainability of biological outputs? The actions of EPA, FWS, and NMFS, and consistent court opinions, answer that question. The answer is “no!”

It seems unlikely, due to hardening political and legal opinion and the specter of the ESA applied in the most conservative sense by the regulatory agencies and the courts, that any significant timber volume will be forthcoming from old growth on federal lands in the Pacific Northwest. Concerns with “sustainability” were and are simply subordinate to the meeting of the requirements of the ESA.

Ten years have passed since commitment to the NWFP. Times have changed. Knowledge has accumulated. Cutting of timber from old-growth stands has become evermore unlikely. That does not seem apt to change. Declines in numbers of pairs of nesting northern spotted owls, likely associated with displacement by barred owls (Strix varia), recent invaders of the habitat and better adjusted to younger stands and fragmented habitats, an under appreciated factor in 1990, seems likely to increase the value of any remaining old growth to the welfare of the northern spotted owl, including that in the matrix between reserves.

For those who love old-growth forests, for reasons ranging from concern over associated plants and animals (or the ecosystems of which they are part), to the beauty and majesty of large old trees, there is no compromise. They have fought, and will fight mightily, and probably successfully, to save both old large trees and any remaining old-growth forest stands on national forests in the Pacific Northwest from being cut. And, they have the upper hand in terms of national public opinion and as a consequence of the ESA and consistent federal court decisions associated with that factor.

Technicians and the lawyers who advise them (“left brain dominated” technocrats all) should have learned by now that it is not the northern spotted owl that is or was the question in the Pacific Northwest. Nor, is it or was it marbled murrelets, nor the myriad runs of anadromous fish at risk. It was not even the hundreds of species closely associated with old-growth forests. It was, technically and legally, the remnant old-growth ecosystem upon which threatened or endangered species depend that was, itself, threatened and endangered.

Or, is there even more to it than that, something more related to beauty, reverence, or other factors – “right brained processes” – that foresters, wildlife biologists, other technicians and lawyers and judges are poorly prepared, reluctant, and even legally prohibited from considering? If so, this debate, and other raging debates about the future of the public’s forests, are being argued and fought using surrogates for the real issues. Perhaps consideration of “sustainability” should be expanded beyond the current application to goods and services to be inclusive of stand conditions determined to have value in and of themselves.

Forest managers face a paradox in carrying out the mandates of the ESA (and the FS’s regulations “diversity clause”) related to old growth and associated species. No stand of trees, forest, or ecosystem (and the associated species of plants and animals) can be frozen in time nor will they persist forever in an old-growth state. Ecosystems are dynamic and ever changing; vegetation sprouts, grows, and dies. The emergence of new life, and its growing and dying, are ongoing. Some individual trees die young and some live for centuries. Sometimes, death is sudden and widespread due to stand-replacing fire or dramatic blow-down or some other factor, including chain saws. As a wag said, “Stuff happens. Trees die and trees grow. Live with it.”

Sustainability of old-growth ecosystems, in the end, will be dependent on forest managers understanding and utilizing dynamic management approaches. LSRs are the beginning point in sustaining old-growth associated ecosystems, not the end. If a desired forest condition is to be maintained over the very long term, management to attain and sustain that condition must be dynamic, flexible, adaptive, and equally considerate of both short-term and long-term risks. Minimization of short-term risks (the modus operandi of regulatory agencies and the federal courts) has a price tag, and a very big one, related to significantly increased longer-term risks of failure to meet incremental objectives over very long time frames.

However, make no mistake, any management scheme aimed toward providing for old growth, even over centuries, must begin with remnant stands of old growth. Old growth may take centuries to develop, and, even then, it is unknown whether facsimiles can be produced through innovative silviculture. Even if the very long-term probability of maintaining old-growth stands of adequate amount, sizes, arrangement, and adequate connection to sustain species associated with such conditions are unknown, federal land managers are none-the-less required, above all other objectives, to attempt achievement of that end.

Theirs is not to reason why, theirs is to but to obey the law. And, at the moment, the overriding law is the ESA. They will execute their duties in a manner prescribed by duly elected officials and their appointees. I.e., elected officials set policy and the professionals execute those policies within the bounds of laws, regulations, court decisions and budgets. When questions arise as to compliance with laws and regulations and reckoning is due, the federal courts (not technical specialists and not interest groups) will judge when and whether land managers have performed appropriately and adequately.

Clearly, the NWFP is the minimum (in terms of the short term protection of old-growth forests within the range of the northern spotted owl) that will pass muster with the federal courts. That seems unlikely to change. The NWFP can only be evaluated, at this point, in terms of how it has actually been executed. It is impossible to evaluate the potential results of the NWFP if it were executed as written until that occurs.

And, even if the NWFP is not in keeping with the vision of Option 9, it is the operative plan. And, unless and until the NWFP is modified, it is the operative document guiding management. But, I would contend that there is latitude in the NWFP that has yet to be explored.

Possible Futures

Even if the NWFP were followed as written, requirements for “survey and manage,” will preclude meeting projected timber yields. Why search for such species in old growth if it can be assumed that they are present? Surely, enough information is now available to evaluate that probability. Even then, legal/political resistance, including extreme varieties of civil disobedience by environmental extremists, to any cutting of old-growth forests seems highly likely.

Will Civil Disobedience Be Permitted to Deter Action?

Unless the administration in power is prepared to deal firmly and consistently with significant acts of civil disobedience, it would be well to adjust the NWFP to remove all old-growth forests on federal lands from consideration for cutting. The Clinton Administration quickly backed away from such confrontation.

Perhaps, the projected timber volumes should simply be adjusted to recognize that, for some combination of ecological, legal, and political reasons, the cutting of old growth on national forests in the Pacific Northwest, and perhaps all federal lands, is at an end. That is a political decision pure and simple and should be made by elected officials or their appointees.

Eventually, at least two obvious problems with preservationist approaches emerge. The first appears in the form of what I would call the “creeping increases in preserves syndrome” wherein new preserves are routinely designated for each new listed species. Each new set of preserves decreases the area open to management to produce goods and services. Simultaneously, depending on the amount and arrangement of the preserves, the effect on the lands that remain open to management is magnified with every addition. Access to those lands is correspondingly reduced, often disproportionately, as increases in preserved areas blocks access. Then, when the consequences become obvious, reactions of economic losers produce social and political ripple effects.

And, as our nation is firmly committed to the idea that, as John F. Kennedy put it, “a rising tide lifts all boats,” our national economic well being depends on a combination of an increasing population and an increasing per capita consumption of goods and services. Therefore, production of raw materials and associated economic activity is merely transferred “elsewhere.” Elsewhere is more and more frequently other nations with less concern for and less capability of realizing the dream of “supplying our own needs without impingement on the ability of later generations to do the same.”

The second drawback inherent to increasing dependence on preserve strategies is that ecological change is ongoing in preserves, some slowly (e.g., community succession) and some rapidly (e.g., stand-replacing fire, blow down, or insect and disease outbreaks). One of the oldest concepts in ecology is that of plant succession. While succession is no longer considered as predictable as it once was due to the demise of some species and introduction of species from elsewhere, vegetative states change over time, certainly in the structure and composition of forested communities.

These changes are inevitably (whether sooner or later) dramatic at both stand and landscape levels, particularly in fire-influenced landscapes in which natural stochastic events (stand-replacing fire, blow down, and mortality from disease and insect outbreaks) cause rapid and often dramatic change. Remember, “Stuff happens,” trees die, and trees grow.

Determination of the appropriate management approaches to deal with the desire, and legal requirement, to prevent the loss of species in order to protect biodiversity is confounded by the culture of involved government agencies. The land management agencies, FS and BLM, have traditional, legal, budgetary, and cultural biases toward “multiple use management” and clearly understand that ecosystems are dynamic. In fact, they rely on manipulation of that dynamism to produce desired, albeit transitory, outcomes from management actions including wood production, varied wildlife habitats, aesthetic effects, grazing, regulation of water flows, and recreational opportunities.

Consequently, land management agencies are more likely to accept more risk in the short term to both achieve shorter-term management objectives and offset perceived greater long-term risk associated with both predictable and stochastic events. Agency workforces are recruited, trained (directly, by example, and through experience), and funded with that combination of objectives and concomitant biases in full effect. Constituencies for these agencies developed from among those that profit, monetarily or otherwise, from the products and circumstances emanating from dynamic management approaches.

Conversely, regulatory agencies, FWS and NMFS, in dealing with threatened and endangered (T&E) species frequently disregard the dynamic nature of ecosystems and take a status quo or preservationist approach. I.e., the agencies’ cultural biases lean toward preservation or static management approaches. Constituencies for these agencies developed from among those that value the products of a status quo management approach – a landscape with less visible impacts of human actions and the fish and wildlife species that benefit from extant circumstances. Consequently, regulatory agencies seem to prefer, or are forced to concentrate on, off-setting short term risk through preservationist strategies while ignoring or downplaying the long-term risk associated with the inevitable dynamic changes in the ecosystems in question.

This common reliance of regulatory agencies on static management approaches has been commonly reinforced by decisions emerging from federal courts relative to the legality of management approaches developed for T&E species. Federal judges, largely, have little background related to ecological processes and the dynamic nature of ecosystems. And, they exhibit even less patience, or willingness, to deal with arguments and hypothesized (i.e., largely untested) results from management strategies keyed to the dynamic nature of ecosystems over the long term. They seem, however, to quickly grasp the logic behind the “fail safe” and “precautionary principle” approaches inherent in preservationist strategies. This has resulted in rulings revolving around what appears to be the “sure thing” of preservation in contrast to the open questions and risks inherent in long-term approaches involving active manipulation of forest ecosystems.

The definition of “success” in management planning for federal lands (particularly as related to T&E species) frequently comes to reside in the hands of a federal judge. In part, this is somewhat due to the fall-out from the Equal Access to Justice Act, which affords the right to sue government entities free of liability for the outcome of adverse decisions, and with expenses paid in cases of success. No doubt, this Act has made it easier, less risky, and more financially attractive to challenge decisions and actions of land management agencies. Consequences have been exacerbated as judges have gradually abandoned the long-standing principle of deferring to agency experts in technical matters.

The wildland fires of 2000 and 2002 in the West have engendered facing up to the inherent paradox in management aimed at maintaining desired habitats (or other ecosystem components) over the very long term. That paradox is revealed in the following contradictory statements simultaneously presented by opposing sides in arguments over management approaches:

1. To maintain desired states in ecosystems it is necessary to place and maintain such areas in preserves from which management is prohibited.
2. Because ecosystems are dynamic and subject to stochastic events, it is necessary to actively manage components in order to maintain desired conditions over the long term.

The second statement says that in order to maintain any desired habitat condition we must routinely change the ecosystem in question. Habitat conditions will exist in different places at different times over the course of time. This is known as the “shifting mosaic” approach.

Desired ecological conditions in forested landscapes will, most commonly, occur in different places at different times as stands proceed through developmental stages. However, the earlier successional stages preceding the late-successional state have comparatively brief periods of existence. Earlier successional stages are more common and easier for forest managers to produce and regulate in terms of timing, size, condition, and arrangement of stands. Extant late-successional stands are, by and large, survivors of past forest harvesting and stochastic natural events such as fire, wind, weather, and insect and disease outbreaks.

Currently existing late-successional stands in managed forests survived due to inconvenient location, absence of mills to handle such huge logs, the logistics of tree harvest, or by a dramatic turn-around in management direction caused by changes in ecological understanding and appreciation, dramatic changes in public opinion expressed in laws and regulations, growing activism by those concerned with environmental matters, and defining court decisions.

Achieving desired results from forest management over the long term implies ability to practice “adaptive management” wherein each management action is considered as an experiment. New management actions (new experiments) are formulated on the foundation of knowledge and perspective gained from results of previous actions.

Adaptive management requires flexibility and social/political permission/willingness for managers to so proceed. Current laws, accumulating case law, agency cultures, and pitched conflict between the societal extremes that care about forest management essentially precludes broad-scale application of new approaches at present. The best that can be hoped for is the support, authorization, and funding of small-scale experimentation. Perhaps, in the beginning, such could be tested on a national forest or two per USFS Region or BLM District with extensive public participation and transparent monitoring.

It is probable that the inevitable, intense, high-visibility, post-mortems on the causes and reactions to big fire years of 2000 and 2002 will be revealing and a catalyst to examine and contrast dynamic vs. static management of forests. Such examination will provide a platform for a renewed, dramatic, intense, and better-informed debate over the future management of federally controlled forestlands, particularly in fire-influenced landscapes.

Fire Takes a Hand

There have been significant impacts from fire to some LSRs, particularly those in fire-influenced landscapes. Efforts are underway to determine the level of diminution of success in preserving late-successional communities. Fortunately, the LSRs in the NWFP were carefully arranged on the landscape with anticipation of stand-replacing fire.

It appears that these inevitable reviews will reveal that the near static management approach is wanting. It might be well, at this point, to reiterate that the current development and application of the NWFP departs dramatically from that envisioned in Option 9 developed by the FEMAT and chosen by President Clinton for institution. Nor, has subsequent management action even been in keeping with the highly modified NWFP that emerged from Option 9.

It was inevitable that these departures from Option 9 and the NWFP and the developing impasse would provoke political action. And, sure enough, the still unfolding results of the extensive wildfires of the years 2000 and 2002 triggered a political response. President George W. Bush, on August 22, 2002, in a speech delivered in Oregon as the largest wildfires in Oregon’s recorded history still burned, announced a change in policy related to the management of federal forestlands. While details were lacking (and the devil indeed lies in the details), it seems that the revised policy would include more active management with less tolerance for unjustified delay. These actions have included the Forest Health Initiative, changes in the survey and management protocols, and others.

The fiscal costs of “forest health activities” will be very high (one USFS unpublished estimate from one area in Oregon ran to $1,685 per acre when thinning was limited to trees less than 21 inches in diameter breast high), and at a time when the nation’s economy is sagging. The heat generated by the ensuing intensified political debate that is now raging will, in its own way, produce heat that reflects the fires that have forced the issue. Talk is cheap. Details are lacking. Nothing is certain. However, the issue, finally, is squarely right in the middle of the table – and it won’t disappear anytime soon. All of that makes what we say here of much more significance than it would have been otherwise.

I had, as Chief of the Forest Service at the time, the personal displeasure of executing the now infamous “salvage rider” which was passed in 1994 over the agency’s objections. I watched as the FS was first pushed hard to meet the salvage targets and, then, was scape goated, for doing so when the political winds shifted and the resurrected environmental community flexed its political muscle. Granting exemptions to the consequences of a plethora of laws and case law that fits together poorly as “one-time solutions” to one emergency or another is poor public policy in the long term, particularly when it takes more than once to learn that lesson.

However, it is hard to argue that the system that governs the planning and management of the public lands has not produced a classic “snafu” decades in the making. Given the length of time it would take to make an appropriate study of the problem and to review and reconcile the underlying legislation, just one more “quick fix” can be justified. However, such, over the long run, is still poor public policy and an evasion of political responsibility across the board.

The current state of affairs relative to accomplishments under the NWFP is not acceptable politically, ecologically or economically. So, given the powerful disturbance forces at work, what can federal land managers do within the boundaries/limitations of the NWFP? My answer is relatively simple. Follow the plan. There is far more leeway in the NWFP than is being used.

Do not spend any more time or effort trying to cut old growth. “Search and manage” protocols have simply made this a fruitless endeavor. Take my word for it, if you search for old growth associated species in old growth stands you will find them. And, even if you were able, by some heroic effort, to get such a sale through all of the certain appeals and legal actions to market at anything approaching reasonable costs, you can anticipate determined civil disobedience. New estimates of the probable sale quantity should be made excluding the sales of late-successional stands that were anticipated in the NWFP. My mantra when I was Chief was to “obey the law and tell the truth.” I repeat that advice today.

Move aggressively in LSRs in fire prone areas (east of the Cascade crest and in southern Oregon and northern California) to produce conditions that enhance the chances that these LSRs would survive wildfire and that dominant trees in younger stands would grow rapidly. Thinning should proceed in all LSRs in younger stands to speed stand structure and tree size along toward “old growth” conditions. If you are not going to follow the NWFP in this regard, make new estimates of the probable sales quality. Tell the truth.

Stream buffers should be adjusted, as was anticipated in the NWFP, and appropriately managed to protect and enhance stream conditions including reduction of probability of loss to stand-replacing fire. Failure to adjust these buffers essentially precludes much of the land in the matrix from management either directly or by making construction of access roads impossible. If you have no intention of adjusting these buffers and managing the remainder, make new estimates of the probable sale quality. Tell the truth.

AMAs should be utilized for the purposes for which they were intended. Unless we are willing to experiment with various ways of achieving and sustaining biodiversity we will be stuck with “static” management approaches that are almost certain to fail in the long run. Regulatory agencies must become full partners in such experimentation and realize that AMAs were a part of the plan approved by the President of the United States. It is well to remember President Clinton’s instructions to the FEMAT. “You should carefully examine silvicultural management of forest stands – particularly young stands – especially in the context of adaptive management…” If there is no chance that the AMAs will be managed in this spirit say so and make it clear that there is no extra timber volume to be expected from these areas. Tell the truth.

The bottom line is that the NWFP in practice is but a pale imitation of what was advertised in relation to dynamic management. That, coupled with the de facto elimination of the cutting of old growth, has brought both active stand management and timber output to a small fraction of what was anticipated. This is both unfortunate and unwise. If the NWFP cannot be followed it should be revised so that the consequences of the status quo can be examined, explained, and considered.

Literature Cited

FEMAT. 1993. Forest ecosystem management: An ecological, economic, and social assessment – report of the Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment Team. U.S.D.A. Forest Service. Portland, Oregon.

Thomas, Jack Ward, Eric D. Forsman, Joseph B. Lint, E. Charles Meslow, Barry R. Noon, and Jared Verner. 1990. Conservation strategy for the northern spotted owl. U.S.D.A. Forest Service. Portland, Oregon.

Thomas, Jack Ward, Martin G. Raphael, Robert G. Anthony, Eric D. Forsman, A. Grant Gunderson, Richard S. Holthausen, Bruce G. Marcot, Gordon H. Reeves, James R. Sedell, and David M. Solis. 1993. Viability assessments and management considerations for species associated with late-succession and old-grow forests of the Pacific Northwest – the report of the Scientific Analysis Team. U.S.D.A. Forest Service, National Forest System. Washington, D. C.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (Forest Service) and U.S. Department of Interior (Bureau of Land Management). 1994a. Final supplemental environmental impact statement on management of habitat for late-successional and old-growth forest related species within the range of the northern spotted owl. Portland, Oregon.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (Forest Service) and U.S. Department of Interior (Bureau of Land Management). 1994b. Record of decision for amendments to Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management planning documents within the range of the northern spotted owl. Portland, Oregon. 74pp.

USDA Forest Service - Northwest Forest Plan Review
Last Modified: Tuesday, 05 August 2003 at 11:56:27 EDT