Forestry and the
Environment
By Peter Berck
University of California,
Berkeley
(c) 1998,2006 by Peter Berck
1
The story of forestry in the West.
Role of Laws
Key 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
2
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
3
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
4
Postwar and Pre-Owl
Political agreement on timber
Informal tools--discretion
5
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!
6
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.
7
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”
8
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.
9
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
10
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
11
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
12
NEPA
Before a major federal action can be taken,
the agency must
Get public comment on issues to be considered
Make a plan (Environmental Impact Statement)
and several alternative plans including do nothing
Get public comment on the plans
Choose a preferred alternative
This was not thought to be radical
legislation.
13
NEPA 1969 Title 1 Sec
102:
(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;
14
Resource Planning Act (‘74)
Resource assessment at the National level
Targets for Regions and Forests
Plans to meet those targets
This 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.
15
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
16
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 oldgrowth
would only delay cut out
17
cmai
CMAI
Culmination of mean annual increment
• Time when timber per year is biggest
• Trees grow faster when young
meant to put teeth into sustained yield
ecologically meaningless: trees still too small to
preserve oldgrowth dependent species
18
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 possible
But watch the current court!
19
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
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
21
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
22
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, nondeclining flow, and other constraints.
The Spotted Owl became the most
celebrated constraint
23
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”
24
Allowable Cut Effect
To get nondeclining
flow
Industry likes this.
They get more wood
cut oldgrowth now
Environmentalists
plan to cut
hate this. They see
unprofitable trees later
oldgrowth cut down
When later comes,
sooner.
make new plan and
don’t cut remote trees It is an example of
“no commitment”
Thus cut declines
under non-declining
constraint.
25
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)
26
Spotted owl habitat
Goshawk habitat
Visual retention
Partial Visual ret.
Bald eagle habitat
Semi-primitive
WILD AND SCENIC RIVER
RECREATION AREA
Minimal management
Private Land
Timber emphasis
27
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
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
29
Listing of the Owl
June 1989, proposed listing of Owl as
threatened in Fed. Register
June 1990 listed, but no critical habitat
30
Congress in the Act
No stranger control
Non-sustainable ASQ
as far back as Carter
1984 Bailout
Because of inflation,
companies bid too
much for timber;
Congress released
them from their
contracts withou full
penalties.
Hatfield-Adams
1989. Prescribed the
sale for (fiscal)‘89-’90
9.6 billion bd ft
streamlined appeals-SEIS not subject to
judicial
no temp restrain or
prelim injunct on fisc
‘90 timber sales
deadlines for judicial
review; special masters
31
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)
32
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
33
FEMAT: Option 9
“ecosystem management plan,” holistic,
adaptive
Option 9 is response to summit in april ‘93
Timber: 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 management
local communities and agencies
still protects owls
34
Presidents (Clinton)Forest
Plan
Is Option 9
Less timber
More attention to “ecosystem”
GIS is in.
Adaptive management (though I can’t
currently define it.)
35
Congress Sets Cut Directly
(again)
Salvage Rider (good for two years)
Response to destructive fires
Response 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
36
challenge. (Bee, JULY 27, 1995)
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.
37
The Murrelet lives in
the valuable timber. ESA
prohibits cutting. A Deal
for Headwaters got hammered
Out with state and fed $
Map Copyright © 1998 California Resources Agency. All rights
reserved.
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
39
Stakeholder Processes
Get the interested parties into room
Bargaining in shadow of the law
ESA
Political power
Clausowitz: War is the continuation of
politics by other means
Republicans and Environmentalists ascendant
at same time
40
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
41
New Emphasis on Stock
Agency and Administration
Protect Wildlife per se (stock): owls and
Fish
Fire (stock): reduce hazard for wood and
for communities
Create “healthy,” “natural,” or “diverse”
forest (stock)
get back to pre-european conditions
42
Counterpoint
Republican and Congressional
JOBS (flow)
Timber (flow)
But, Jobs makes much better politics than
timber.
43