What Does the Forest Service Get Right? Dave

In a recent comment on another post, Independent Forester asks this intriguing question, after laying out a case to the contrary:

Let’s evaluate USFS planning and policy-making. The Legislative Branch doesn’t like you, and passes laws intended to circumvent your efforts. USFS planning budgets are cut every year. The Executive Branch concurs, and the Chief blames you for what he calls “analysis paralysis”. The Judicial Branch puts the kibosh on everything you do. The Far Right thinks you are anti-American commies. The Far Left sues you chronically, in a knee-jerk fashion. The Vast Middle doesn’t know you exist. Your own field personnel despise you. Your “union” has abandoned you, and also sues the agency constantly.

Your numbers are dwindling. Ranger Stations are closing all over. SO’s are rented out to other agencies. Last time I was in the R6 RO it was a hollow cavern of empty cubicles.

The National Forests are burning at a rate greater than ever. Record-sized fires have occurred in every western state in the last decade. You burned down much of Los Alamos, and your fires have nipped the edges of Los Angeles, San Diego, Bend, Grants Pass, Wenatchee, and numerous other western cities and towns.

It seems like a cascade of failures to me, but I want to be fair. What is it, exactly, that you are doing right?

As one of the agency’s most outspoken internal critics I have asked myself that question a hundred times. In part my answer comes down to this, “Although we are a bureaucratic mess, at least we serve a role in keeping the public forests intact and in keeping developers at bay -- somewhat, but don’t get me started on 'running the government like a business' and the slippery slopes to privatization, commercialization, etc.”

We have had dark moments in our stewardship, e.g. our “timber beast” days. We’ve had a hard time dealing with the politics of the West, and grazing, mining, timbering, road building, etc. issues. We struggle with contemporary issues: fire issues (both on suppression and vegetative management and other pre-suppression issues), noxious weed and other “invasive species” issues, recreation issues of various stripes, devolution issues (as to who ought to manage what public lands), etc.

But at least we keep trying. And part of the “trying” is trying to reform our bureaucratic ways toward what Gifford and Elizabeth Pinchot call “The End of Bureaucracy & The Rise of the Intelligent Organization.” Here too we aren’t doing very good, or at least we don’t seem to be progressing all that rapidly. But at least we haven’t given up entirely.

Perhaps there is a more fundamental question in play: “What good are we?” In this I defer to a backdrop developed by Mark Sagoff in ”Zuckerman's dilemma. A plea for environmental ethics.” Hastings Cent Rep. 1991 Sep-Oct;21(5):32-40, Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, University of Maryland, College Park. Here’s an abstract:

E.B. White's Charlotte's Web serves as an environmental parable for our time. As we reflect on our relationship with nature, we might consider the three ways in which Wilbur the pig was valued in White's story. His instrumental value cashes out in ham hocks and sausage. His aesthetic value earns him a ribbon at the county fair. His moral value is the value he has in and of himself, and Charlotte the spider loves him for it. We can value nature the way Charlotte valued Wilbur, or we can, as the farmer Zuckerman did at first, see the natural world only in terms of the pork chops it provides.

It all gets very complex and wicked. On the one hand we can grapple with Zuckerman’s dilemma regarding public forests and Nature in general, as per Sagoff’s article. But we also have to grapple with the dilemma regarding those, like us.charged with Nature’s stewardship. And we have to grapple with what roles other members of our democracy play, e.g. the Congress, the Administration, the press, members of the public (individuals and collectives).

Still, I don’t see us making much headway on the former question of “What does the Forest Service do right?” without also entertaining the question, “What Good is the Forest Service?” as keepers of the public trust, as participants in and inciters of the public debate over forests and forestry, etc.

An old friend of mine one told me that the essence of “the public interest” is the struggle. The journey is what's important, the destination changes through time. So too with contemporary focus on sustainability, but that is a subject for another time. Right now we are grappling with “What does the Forest Service get right?” and “What good is the Forest Service?” So let the discussion continue.

Another old friend used to manage a very large private ranch in Northern Utah (almost 300,000 acres). When visiting the ranch in the early 1980s, along with the Director of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, a naturalist botany professor from a local university, and several Soil Conservation Service people, all of us were awestruck with the condition and trend of the vegetation on the ranch. The naturalist commented, “I can’t find any annuals here. They must be doing something right.” The Wildlife director said, in essence, “I always used to denigrate ranchers for abuses of the land. But now I see this, I’m glad the State didn’t get this property when it was offered to them. This bunch does a better job than we could in managing the land.”

The ranch manager, on the other hand said that while they were proud of what they were doing and the land ethics they employ in operating a working ranch, the abuses in the private sector were legendary. All one had to do was to visit a bunch of neighboring properties to see first hand the abuses. He said that although the job of public land managers was different and difficult, he noted that most of the public lands were in pretty good shape, relative to the private sector.

So it goes..