Evolution of a Legal and Policy Framework for Ecosystem Management

1. Evolution of a Legal and Policy Framework for Ecosystem Management NR 205 –Ecosystem Management Fall 2005

2. 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

3. 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?

4. 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

6. 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 Federal Lands

7. 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

8. Reflects history of federal Land acquisition and transfer • Major land purchases in 1800s     Louisiana purchase Oregon compromise Mexican-American War 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

9. Checkerboard Lands

10. 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?

11. U.S. Forest Service • Organic Act of 1897 • Stated purposes for the Forest Reserves: • 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

12. 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

13. National Forest System Lands

14. Indian Tribes of the U.S. Northwest

15. U.S. Forest Service • Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act (MUSY) 1960

16. U.S. Forest Service • Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act (MUSY) 1960 • 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.”

17. 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. 

18. National Wilderness Preservation System VT and NH Wilderness Areas

19. U.S. Forest Service • Resources Planning Act 1974 • 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

20. U.S. Forest Service • National Forest Management Act 1976 • 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

21. U.S. Forest Service • Planning Process • 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

22. 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

23. 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.