Intro:

The economy theory discussed last week applies mostly to cases where resources and ecosystems are in private ownership. The owner gets to chose how to manage them, guided, in theory, by market signals. By definition, public lands and the resources on them, are something closer to what Loomis called common pool resources, even though they may be developed and extracted by private interests (e.g., mining companies and ranchers). Their conservation and management over time has reflected a partly bureaucratic and partly democratic regime. The early bureaucratic regime could be called "technocratic" as under Pinchot the aim of the US Forest Service was to manage resources scientifically to produce the most good for largest number of people, but the scientists/bureaucrats got to decide how this was effected. As Americans demanded more non-traditional values form public land resources (as described in this chapter), the bureaucrats tried to respond (often slowly and ineptly). The first response was "Multiple use."

Pinchot’s philosophy called for it, but in actuality early FS and other agency policy (BLM, USFS) was more "dominant use" (timber for FS; grazing and minerals for BLM; game species for FWS).

In post-WWII time frame demand was way up for traditional (lumber, minerals, etc.) and non-traditional resources (recreation, scenery, solitude, wildlife watching instead of shooting).

Agencies ill-equipped, so stuck with what they knew: dominant use.

1960 Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act defined uses for FS as timber, watershed, wildlife, and recreation, but agency still focused on timber.

Social demand grew and interest groups, frustrated with dominant use, went after:

Wilderness: The 1964 Wilderness Act severely restricted agency management options for those land

National Trail System, National Wild and Scenic Rivers, etc.

Then more general environmental legislation: NEPA; ESA.

Finally: NFMA and FLPMA codified multiple, including preservation, uses for FS and BLM.

Agency budgets didn’t keep up with new demands, some uses, like recreation, did not "payt the bills" like timber production did. Laws like NEPA allowed public and interest groups to challenge agency decisions.

Hard for institutions to change: training and ideologies slow to changer.

Rural economic interests also fought for dominant use since their economies were often structured around it (e.g., the local timber mill was main employer).

Even an agency that seemed to be more in keeping with changing social demands, the National Park Service, ran into this as locals demanded economic benefit from parks, or decried Park management that hurt them (e.g., wolves, snowmobiles, etc.)

Friction among agencies—e.g., NPS gets positive attention from a recreation-oriented public..

Too well suited to dominant use!

Timber production seen as compatible with other uses by agency, but not by their publics.

Technocrats were uncomfortable:

Problems with continued "timber primacy"

Finally, by the 1960s/70 people began to protest FS practices, especially clear cutting which was the most technically efficient way to get timber.

West Virginians and the state legislature complained about widespread clear cutting, asked for modifications

FS said: go stuff yourselves, we’re the experts here.

Agency felt their critics were wrong, and just needed to be "educated" in correct forest management.

Court’s "Monongahela Decision" banned clear-cutting, as did other court cases. FS in crisis.

NFMA: substituted dense planning rules for decision-making, further bogging down the agency.

Agency moved to "black box" models trying to achieve a balance of uses, but still no real solution to Multiple Use illogic. You can’t do everything with every acre, and different people want something different form every acre. So a planning nightmare.

Q: Was NFMA destined to yield an obsurant planning process, or did the agency take advantage to keep wiggle room, or did interest group force it by procedural challenges?

Epitaph: "Stage is set" for a change: authors here (pp. 155-157) catalog a crisis of mission and vision in FS and other agencies. I guess crisis can lead to change.

Read this section and we’ll discuss in class:

Planning for Multiple use - Sustained Yield
FLPMA directed the BLM to establish a planning process that resembles that used by other federal agencies. Under FLPMA, the BLM must periodically inventory public lands and their resources and develop management plans. In doing so, FLPMA requires the BLM to manage the public lands using the same principles of multiple use and sustained yield that the Forest Service applies to national forests and grasslands. This means that resources must be used in a combination that will best meet the needs of the American people, taking into account the long-term needs of future generations. In managing its lands, BLM must consider the relative value of resources without necessarily promoting the uses with the greatest economic return or greatest unit output, and must not permanently impair the productivity of the land. In managing for multiple use, the BLM does not need to accommodate every use on every parcel of land.