Lecture7 forests

National Forests: History 1

1800-1891: Disposition Era
 Open access to forests
1891-1911 Pinchot Era: Establishing the Forests
 1891 Forest Reserve Act: President can create reserves
 1897 Organic Act: Est. Forest Service
 1905 Transfer of Forests from Interior to Agriculture
 1911 Weeks Act: Acquisition of Eastern forestland
1911-1945 Post-Pinchot: Custodial Era
 Forest Service develops expertise mystique
 Timber is dominant use but demand low
 Iron triangle: Forest service, timber industry/communities, Western
Congressional delegation

Harrison-R

Cleveland-D

T. Roosevelt-R

National Forests: History 2

WWII to Earth Day 1970: Getting out the Cut
 Increase in timber demand for war supplies; post-war housing boom
 Recreational visitors increase
 Lots of clear cutting
1970 to 1993: Pluralist Forest Policy Regime
 National Forest Management Act of 1976
 Judicial scrutiny
1993-Now: Post-Spotted Owl
 Conflicts over ESA
 Reduced timber harvest in NW
 Reforms of Forest Service Planning

Public forests
account for 29% of
US Timberland, but
2% of harvest—this
has been declining
over time

TREND DATA
Growing stock harvest by major owner,
region and year
Return

14
As public policy
12 has shifted,
removals have
Public
Billion cubic feet

10 moved
Private dramatically from
8 public land in the
West to private
6 land in the East
in the last 15
4 years.

2 Click here for
additional historic
0 data on
U.S. Timber
1996

2001

1986

2001
1952

1962

1976

1996
1976

1986
1962
1952

Production, Trade,
Consumption, and
Price Statistics
EAST WEST
1965-2002.

Source: National Report on Forest Resources Return to FIA Home
NEXT

Gifford Pinchot: “The Grand Master”

Early Governing Statutes
1897 Organic Act
 Somewhat a backlash to “preservation” idea of Forest Reserves
 Goal: “To improve and protect the forest within the reservation, or for
the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to
furnish a continuous supply of timber…”
 Forestry Division authorized to “regulate use and occupancy”
 Authorized sale of “dead, matured, or large growth tress” that had
been “marked and designated before sale”
1960 Multiple-Use and Sustained Yield Act
 Directs Forest Service to administer the forests for “outdoor
recreation, range, timber, watershed, and wildlife and fish purposes”
 Statutory recognition of “multiple-use” concept; legal basis for
ongoing recreation/wilderness management
 Preserved agency discretion; seen by many as method of maintaining
timber dominance

National Forest Management Act 1976

Impetus
 Monongahela case, 1975: Clearcutting violates Organic Act;
harvest of unmarked, live trees
 Bolle and Church reports; Senate commissions in response to
clearcutting, esp. in Bitterroot; suggested conditions for clearcutting
Three Basic Functions
 Establishes a forest planning process that requires forest plans for
every forest, updated every 15 years
 Substantive guidelines for resource management:
1. “Suitability” requirements limits harvesting to environmentally
and economically suitable lands; clearcutting allowed only where
optimum
2. “Non-declining even flow” management
3. “Viability” regulation for protecting biodiversity—key for
preventative ecosystem management
 Expansion of public participation

Forest Planning

Nuts and Bolts
 Drafted by every forest, approved by Regional Forester
 Adheres to NEPA, with discussion of multiple alternatives
 Plans must adhere to MUSYA principles
 Plans must include a Resource Planning Act alternative,
that relates to national resource production goals
 Interdisciplinary planning teams
 Resource inventories and identification of physically
suitable lands
 Programmatic guidelines, including plan for timber sale
program and allowable cut
 Forest plans are primary guidance for on-the-ground
decisions, including timber sales

Forest Planning Steps
 Basic steps from 1982 regulations (Loomis)
1. Identification of issues, concerns, opportunities: Public
comments
2. Development of planning criteria: How decisions are made
3. Data collection: Resource inventory data needs
4. Analysis of management requirements: Land classification,
models, management actions (including FORPLAN, linear
programming)
5. Formulate alternatives: NEPA, No-action, RPA
6. Estimate costs/benefits (and 7)
8. Selection of preferred alternative
9. Implementation
10. Monitoring/Evaluation
 Planning regulations just revised; reflect more ecosystem
management and collaborative principles
 Some forests have finished, others in progress

Getting Out the Cut

How a Timber Sale Works
 Each Nat. Forest has an allowable sale quantity
(aggregated into National cut)
 Forest plans also describe a timber sale program
 Individual sales can be found on “Schedule of Proposed
Actions”
 Once a sale is advertised, must go through NEPA process
and then awarded to highest bidder
 Federal forests account for 29% of US timberland base,
and 11% of harvesting. Nat. Forest: 19% of land, 5% of
harvest (1997 figures)
 About 26% of all Nat Forest land is deemed suitable for
timber harvest

Bureaucratic Incentives for Timber Dominance

Incentives for Timber Dominance
 Since 1908, Law requires 25% of timber sale receipts be
returned to states for use in county roads and schools
 Knutson-Vandenberg Act 1930: A portion of timber
receipts goes directly back to forest, supposedly for
reforestation (1994: $911m in timber sales, $215m goes to
K-V funds=24%; some sales quite higher; 2/3 of
reforestation dollars come from KV funds
 Major question: Has Forest Service broken the iron
triangle, or is it still timber dominant, captured by timber
industry?

Klamath National Forest Timber Harvest Plan

Table 1. Use of Knutson-Vandenberg Funds Since FY1980 (in millions of
dollars)
Total Stand
Fiscal year Reforestation Other Uses
Expenditures Improvement

1980 75.00 55.10 19.90 0.00
1981 92.78 67.13 19.32 6.33
1982 84.01 62.89 14.90 6.22
1983 116.85 66.30 20.35 30.20
1984 118.00 68.90 21.90 27.20
1985 120.70 70.76 19.33 30.64
1986 156.09 67.11 18.74 70.24
1987 196.69 91.49 28.09 77.11
1988 238.00 114.12 31.13 92.75
1989 237.06 113.79 30.82 92.45

1990 217.31 115.61 30.32 71.38

1991 196.54 103.31 35.28 57.95
1992 247.07 122.07 43.50 81.50
1993 252.62 124.81 44.48 83.33
1994 222.02 125.00 35.28 61.74

Trends in Harvest
(source: Timber Sale Program Information System Annual Report)

Recent Trends in Forest Stewardship Harvesting

Below-Cost Timber Sales
 Revenues gained from timber sales are below cost of
administering the sale (1998: Forest Service lost $125m)
 Below-cost sales concentrated in forests with low timber
values and/or high operating costs
 Concentrated in certain areas: Alaska, Rockies, Southeast,
Lake States, New England
 Between 1989-1993: 77 of the 120 forests lost money; 43
with net profits
 Six reported losses over $10 million: Klamath (OR);
Flathead (MT); North Carolina Forests; Tongass (AK),
Bitterroot (MT)
 Profitable ones in Northwest; 5 forests with profits over
$100 million
 Problem appears to be worsening due to increased costs,
decreased revenues

Ecosystem Management in the USFS
Northwest Forest Plan
 Northern Spotted Owl and other endangered species
 Injunctions on timber sales; viability regulation
 Clinton’s forest summit
 Regional plan amends individual forest plans; slows down logging in PacNW
Sierra Nevada Framework
 California Spotted Owl
 Protected Activity Centers
 Conflict between Quincy Library Group
 New revisions under Bush administration increase amount of logging and size
of trees
Healthy Forests Restoration Act
 Streamlining salvage sales and thinning projects
 Fire control
 Removal of NEPA and other requirements (categorical exclusions)
 Greenwashing?

The “Appeals Logjam”

• Forest Service and extractive industries have been
claiming that environmental appeals and lawsuit are
preventing forest projects
• GAO analysis
• 7/05 lawsuit: FS must allow appeals on all significant
projects, even if categorically excluded under NEPA
• Bush administration rule extended categorical exclusions
to timber acres less than 1000 acres and salvage up to 4200
• Enviros sued, judge agreed, then FS then stopped all
categorical exclusions, including things like cutting
XMAS trees

GAO Report on Appeals and Litigation

• 762 fuel reduction decisions in FY 01/02; 457 categorical
excluded, 305 appealable
• 180 were appealed; 59% of appealable, 24% of all; 83% of
those appealed went forward
• Appeal rates were higher in roadless areas, lower in urban-
wildland interface
• 23 were litigated (3%, 100,000 acres); 3 reversed, 5
settled, 1 upheld (means plaintiffs tend to do better in
court)
• 79% of appeals were processed within prescribed 90 days;
21% were not processed within 90 days with median
processing time 119 days
• 84 interest groups and 29 private individuals represented in
appeals

New Planning Regulations: 2008
• Excludes forest plans from NEPA analysis; NEPA analysis now at the
project level
• Eliminates many prescriptive standards from forest plans; project no
longer required to comply with plans
• Eliminates the “viability” standard, replaces it with vague language
regarding ecosystem diversity without requirements to survey and
manage “indicator species”
• Replaces requirement to follow best available science with
requirement to “consider” best available science
• Originally promulgated in 2005 without EIR or ESA analysis; courts
throw out for procedural grounds
• 2008: Rejected by courts again for non-compliance with NEPA,
because EIS does not analyze environmental effects of weakened
viability clause

Natural Resource Regimes: A Conceptual Framework
Management Decisions and
Environmental Behavior
Timber sales
Governance Institutions Monitoring, which species
Legislative procedures, committees Protected habitat
NEPA, NFMA, Planning Rules, Forest Plans Suitability for different uses
Court decisions Thinning and logging techniques
Roadbuilding techniques
Fire breaks
Reforesettion
Actors with Interests How many big trees
Resource Dilemmas Congress
Timber extraction USFS, USDA, President,
Biodiversity Enviros, Extractive, Communties,
Fires risk Courts, Scientists
Erosion/ecosyssytem health Consequences
How much biodiversity
Ideas and Ideology Regrowth
Wise use How much resource use
Ecology/Fire Ecology Internatoinal goods/sustainability
Zero-cut/ below cost timeber sales Money
Deep ecology Jobs
Multiple Use Community health
Collaborative Stability
Ecosystem management Recreation
Forest health

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