Evolution of a Legal and Policy
Framework for Ecosystem
Management
NR 205 –Ecosystem
Management
Fall 2005
USFS
NPS
BLM
USFWS
Early/
formative
period
WWII to late
1960s
1960s to early
1990s
Early 90s to
present
Ecosystem Management
 EM means different things to different agencies and the agencies have
gotten to this point by following very different paths. But they now share at
least some goals and objectives
Environmental Management
Policies and Approaches



How is natural resources management done
in the United States?
Who does it? What are their legal
mandates?
Can we approach ecosystem management
through existing mandates and
management practices?
Land Tenure (Ownership) in the
United States
1. Public




Federal
State
County
Municipal
2. Private



Corporate
NGO (land trusts, etc.)
Individuals
3. Tribal  these are sovereign lands
Federal government administers nearly 1/3 of all U.S. lands
Federal Lands
Agency
Acres Managed (in millions)
Bureau of Land Management
264
Forest Service
191
Fish and Wildlife Service
93
National Park Service
84
Department of Defense/Army
Corps of Engineers
12
Estimated Worth > $65 billion for the
land itself

Federal agencies rival Fortune 500 companies
No. employees (about 46,000 combined)
 Budget (about $3.5 billion combined)


Production
¼ of all lumber consumed in US
 150-175 million barrels of oil
 60 million tons of coal
 75% grazing land for US livestock
 500,000 visitor days recreation

Reflects history of federal Land
acquisition and transfer

Major land purchases in 1800s
Louisiana purchase
Mexican-American War
Oregon compromise
Alaska purchase
These resulted in > 2 billion acres added to federal ownership

Period of Transfers
Homestead Act of 1862
Transfers to States (land-grant colleges, schools, township tracts
Transfers to Railroads
Checkerboard Lands
Result was checkerboard pattern of
land ownership in the west


Active retention of land for National Parks, beginning
with Yellowstone in 1872
Creation of the “Forest Reserves”


To prevent the scarcity of wood and to promote better water
management (reduce floods and landslides)
Forest Reserve Act of 1891



President can reserve land from homesteading (DOI)
By 1896, 39 million acres preserved by Harrison and
Cleveland
But what is this land for?
U.S. Forest Service

Organic Act of 1897

Stated purposes for the Forest Reserves:
1.
2.
3.


To preserve and protect the forest in the reserve
To secure favorable conditions of water flow
To furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use
and necessities of the people of the US
Specified harvest of “dead, matured or large
growth trees”
Set up basic administrative structure of FS –
Forest Supervisor and Forest Rangers on site
U.S. Forest Service

Transfer Act of 1905
Moved Forest Reserves to the Department of
Agriculture
 Name change to “National Forests” in 1907


Weeks Act of 1911


Gave President authority to purchase private land in
the eastern US for National Forests
Not much wood cut on USFS land till after
World War II – building boom
National Forest System Lands
Indian Tribes of the U.S. Northwest
U.S. Forest Service

Multiple Use
Sustained Yield Act
(MUSY) 1960
U.S. Forest Service

Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act (MUSY) 1960
1.
2.
3.
4.
Defined uses permitted on forests – timber, watershed
protection, outdoor recreation, range, wildlife, fish
Balance competing uses in relation to their relative values
Defined multiple use as “management of all the various
renewable surface resources of the National Forests so that
they are utilized in the combination that will best meet the
needs of the American people…”
Defined sustained yield as “achievement and maintenance in
perpetuity of a high level annual or regular periodic output
of various renewable resources of the national forests
without impairment of productivity of the land.”
U.S. Forest Service

Wilderness Act 1964





Applies to all Federal land, not just FS land.
Wilderness defined as “lands that retain their primeval
character.”
Originally 9.1 million acres included
Today there are 105. 8 million acres. Alaska contains
58.2 million acres, or about 56% of the system.
4.4% of the continental United States is protected as
Wilderness.
National Wilderness Preservation System
VT and NH
Wilderness
Areas
U.S. Forest Service

Resources Planning Act 1974
1.
2.
3.
Required an assessment of supply and demand for
timber
Required cost-benefit analysis, incorporated into a
5-year plan for each forest
Resulted in “output targets” for each National
Forest; established in Washington
U.S. Forest Service

National Forest Management Act 1976
1.
2.
3.
4.
Reaffirmed multiple use, added “wilderness”
Defined sustained yield as “nondeclining even
flow”
Required each forest to prepare a 50-year multiple
use plan
Required FS to develop regulations to guide forest
planning, including guidelines for determining
where clearcutting is an appropriate management
strategy
U.S. Forest Service

Planning Process
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Identification of issues, concerns, and
opportunities (ICOs)
Public input
Inventory of resources, analysis of the capacity of
the land
Formation of alternatives, more public input
Selection, implementation, periodic updates
1980s National Forests developed their Land and Resource Management
Plans – many lawsuits over these
RARE I and RARE II roadless area inventories. LRMPs recommended
additional wilderness areas
Late 1980s – New Perspectives: an early attempt at ecosystem
management but based solely on “structural retention” within logging
units.
1990s development and then adoption of a U.S. Forest Service ecosystem
management policy nation-wide
1999 USDA Committee of Scientists recommendations on sustainability
2000 Clinton Administration releases an across the board revision of
planning and management regulations based on concepts of
sustainability and ecosystem management
2000 Clinton Administration releases roadless areas policy protecting all
remaining RARE II roadless areas. Restoration and fire hazard reduction
(thinning and prescribed burning) allowed within roadless areas under
this policy.
2001-2004 Bush Administration halts implementation of new regulations
and reverses roadless area policy pending a review. Justice department
chooses not to defend the roadless area policy in court. 2006 – Clinton
roadless area policy upheld by courts
Present Now pursuing a forest-by-forest planning approach that “takes into
account local concerns.” Environmental groups and some academics
(e.g. Yaffee) claim this is a reversion to 1970s style planning and a
movement away from ecosystem management.