Framing Question
How do land managers balance multiple-use and interests on their lands?
Background
Logging, mining, and other resource extraction-dependent communities across the globe have experienced fluctuations in their standards of living (Harris et al., 1998). Many of these communities, having lost their primary source of income and industry due to tightened restrictions and a general transition in the status quo for resource extraction industries, also have diminished resident population sizes. In some cases, otherwise vibrant and healthy towns and cities have all but disappeared. In other cases, communities have exploded from the establishment of a lucrative resource extraction industry, although recent examples of this are few compared to historical trends (Humphries, et al. 2012).
Communities where the primary industry and economy centers around resource extraction activities such as logging, mining, or subsistence have declined in recent decades (Harris et al., 1998). Within those communities, there is often a resentment towards the drivers of this change – often times external influences such as government regulations and non-profit organizations (Fiallo and Jacobson, 1995). This resentment is particularly high in areas where a lucrative resource-extraction industry was diminished and not replaced by another similarly prominent industry, such as the area of southeastern U.S. known as “coal country” (Bell and York, 2010). Residents of this region overwhelmingly supported now president Donald Trump in large part because the candidate supported a return to the coal-dominated economy, and communities across the country representing an array of interests – mining, timber, cattle – are in line with this nostalgia-fueled movement.
In most of these extractive industries though, things have changed. Technological advances invalidate the need for labor-heavy resource extraction methods such as mining for coal by pick and axe. Modern specialized machinery harvest trees many tens of times faster than traditional sawyers, axemen, or even machinery developed in the mid-1900’s. Substitute goods like natural gas have all but outcompeted the more conventional coal power. Countless research shows that timber harvesting leads to habitat fragmentation and subsequently the declines in plant and animal populations like salmon, which represent significant economic contributions to fishing communities (Loomis, 1988). These and a multitude of other factors have contributed to the declines of coal and timber communities across the country, yet often times the residents blame the slew of 1970’s through present-era environmental legislation for regulating and restricting the industries out-of-business.
For most of their histories, the public lands management agencies of the state and federal governments have implemented a top-down approach to navigating the vast matrix of public and private lands in the United States. The land managers had clear goals: maintain resources for specific uses such as timber and resource extraction (national forests), ecological preservation (national wildlife refuges), or visitor recreation and scenery (national parks). In 1960, Congress passed the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act, which paved the way for agencies to begin implementing management strategies with “multiple-use” objectives (Cain et al. 2014, 563-565). Today, each of the four public lands management agencies – the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish & Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, and the Forest Service – has distinct use-objectives while still emphasizing multiple-use for the most part (Congressional Research Service, 2004).
Even with constant efforts to improve land management and cater to all interests, these agencies still encounter conflicts with the public. One of the most significant examples today of public outcry against a land management agency lies in the manifestation of the Northwest Forest Plan (NFP). The Endangered Species Act of 1973 had halted timber harvesting on northwest forests and, in the absence of a substitute industry to fuel local economies, timber-dependent communities and companies protested en masse at Olympia, Washington’s state capital, in 1989. The tense topic held its relevancy and eventually caught the attention of President Bill Clinton, whose administration ordered the creation of what is today the Northwest Forest Plan – a daring public lands management plan that applied “fundamental principles of ecosystem management, conservation biology, and sustainable economics… on a scale never before witnessed in U.S history” (Dellasala and Williams, 2006). The NFP was applicable to lands managed by the Forest Service and BLM that hosted Northern Spotted Owl territory, an area of land that was roughly 10 million hectares.
In the example of the the NFP and others, the crux of the conflict is this question: what use should be most valued in a public land that is labeled as multiple use? In theory, the answer is that no single use is more important than another, but this is painfully idealistic. The NFP is an attempt to balance ecological and economical interests, and while the plan is a substantial improvement over previous single use-focused management strategies, there is mixed opinion on its efficacy to balance multiple interests (Moseley and Yolanda, 2008) (DellaSala et. al, 2013) In some cases, the plan has not contributed to better management, yet in others, there has been a marked improvement in both the ecological, social, and economic conditions of the forest and its nearby communities.
Situated Context
The Siuslaw National Forest is a collection of public lands managed by the USDA Forest Service that encompasses over 630,000 acres of land along the Oregon coast in Tillamook and Coos Bay counties. Much like its state, the Siuslaw contains a vast diversity of ecosystems and landscapes, from coastal headlands to sand dunes to salmon-rearing rivers and streams and highly productive old-growth forests. According to the Siuslaw’s website, the forest is host to over 530 species of amphibians and reptiles, birds, fishes, and mammals, some of which are species of concern or relevance to the Endangered Species Act. Marbled Murrelets (Brachyramphus marmoratusnest) in the old-growth groves and endangered coho and chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) in the forest’s rivers and streams. sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis), douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), and western hemlocks (Tsuga heterophylla) dominate the Siuslaw’s canopy along with the less-prevalant western red cedar (Thuja plicata), red alder (Alnus rubra), and bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum).
The forest’s history with humans is as diverse as its landscapes. The post-World War II era boom in the demand for timber promoted the beginning of large-scale timber harvest in the early 1950’s. Technological advances in harvest methods allowed for faster and more efficient timber harvest, and clear-cutting practices became common. In 1991, the Endangered Species Act outlawed logging activity in any habitat deemed to be supporting the endangered Northern Spotted Owl. Consequently, timber harvest levels in the forest dropped suddenly from 382 mmbf (millions of board feet of timber) to 12.4 mmbf in a matter of two years. Conventional harvest methods like clear-cutting were replaced with commercial thinning, and watershed analysis, a framework for restoring and conserving watersheds, formally began on the forest. Within a matter of years, the Siuslaw National Forest transitioned from a single-use timber producer to a forest bound by law from cutting any substantial portion of its land.
From its inception, the Siuslaw National Forest was focused on timber harvest. The combination of a warm temperate climate, extremely productive soils, and copious rainfall created the ideal environment for tree growth, and understandably, the Siuslaw’s primary concern pre 1990’s was to generate revenue from timber sales to feed the wood-hungry housing market. But with the Siuslaw’s high density of salmon-bearing streams and endangered species habitat, the lucrative logging activities were legally halted. The resulting backlash from pro-timber communities was profound and prompted the creation of the Northwest Forest Plan. With an angry public and no profit from timber harvesting, the Siuslaw was left to navigate a very unclear path, one that fortuitously led to what is today a prominent example of effective and balanced multiple-use land management.
Research Questions
- How did the Siuslaw National Forest transition from single-use timber extraction to a balanced, effective, and multiple-use land management?
- How can the Siuslaw National Forest serve as a framework for effective land management in other national forests and public lands?
- Is the Siuslaw National Forest a pinnacle of a balanced multiple-use land management?
Methodology
- Human: In-depth historical analysis of the events pre and post creation and implementation of the Northwest Forest Plan
- “Torrents of change” and “Seeing the forest” documentaries
- Consuming all historical materials available on the Siuslaw’s website
- Identifying the progression of the logging and timber
- Ecological: Spatial analysis of several PNW National Forests to compare and contrast watershed conditions to the Siuslaw
- Using watershed condition as a proxy to effective ecological restoration, compare the percent area of each forest unit in the Northwest in each of the three watershed conditions: Impaired Function, Functioning at Risk, Functioning Properly
- Paired with Method 2: Examine current restoration and resource-extraction activities on the Siuslaw and several other forests across the PNW
- Each Forest maintains its own website with information on these current activities, and using publicly available reports, data, and information, I plan to gain an overall understanding of how each forest is promoting or not promoting multiple-use on its lands
Citations
- Bell, S E., and York, R. 2010. Community Economic Identity: The Coal Industry and Ideology Construction in West Virginia. Rural Sociology. Vol 75(1):111-143.
- Cain, M L., Bowman, W D., Hacker, S D. 2014. Ecology. Sunderland: Sinauer Associates.
- Congressional Research Service. 2004. Federal Land Management Agencies: Background on Land and Resources Management. CRS Report for Congress.
- DellaSala, D. A. and Williams, J. E. The Northwest Forest Plan: a Global Model of Forest Management in Contentious Times. Conservation Biology. Vol 20(2):274-276. DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2006.00381.x
- DellaSala, D. A., Anthony, R. G., Bond, M. L., Fernandez, E. S., Frissell, C. A., Hanson, C. T., Spivak, R. 2013. Alternative Views of a Restoration Network for Federal Forests in the Pacific Northwest. Journal of Forestry. Vol 111(6):420-429
- Fiallo, E A., Jacobson, S K. 1995. Local Communities and Protected Areas: Attitudes of Rural Residents Towards Conservation and Machalilla National Park, Ecuador. Environmental Conservation. Vol 22(3):241-249. doi:10.1017/S037689290001064X
- Harris, C C., McLaughlin, W J., Brown, G. 1998. Rural Communities in the Interior Columbia Basin: How Resilient Are They? Journal of Forestry. Vol 96(3):11-15(5).
- Humphries S., Holmes, T P., Kainer, K., Koury, C G C., Cruz, E., Rocha R de M. 2012. Are community-based forest enterprises in the tropics financially viable? Case studies from the Brazilian Amazon. Ecological Economics. Vol 77:62-73.
- Kershner, Jeffrey L. 1997 Setting Riparian/Aquatic Restoration Objectives within a Watershed Context. Restoration Ecology. Vol 5(4S):15-24.
- Loomis, John B. 1988. The Bioeconomic Effects of Timber Harvesting on Recreational and Commercial Salmon and Steelhead Fishing: A Case Study of the Siuslaw National Forest. Marine Resources Economics. Vol 5:43-60.
- Moseley, C. and Yolanda, E R. 2008. Forest Restoration and Forest Communities: Have Local Communities Benefited from Forest Service Contracting of Ecosystem Management? Environmental Management. Vol 42:327-343. DOI 10.1007/s00267-008-9116-4
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