Forest Environmental Management Systems

Evaluating Impacts Absent Operational Controls

{Updated 11/21}

At some point when evaluating environmental impacts of activities the question of 'operational controls' and their absences arises. It seems to me, whether or not mistakenly, that we might as well just evaluate impacts given whatever operational controls we commonly place on activities from the get-go and begin our inquiry from that base.

If we consider the impacts of, say, a prescribed burn absent operational controls we are left wondering what indeed 'prescribed burn' is meant to mean. Would we just wander aimlessly (or objectively) and throw matches or aim drip-torches? Similarly for other activities. So we need to define more closely what we are about in any with/without looks at operational controls. Perhaps we are exploring places and cases where opertaional controls might fail, and using that to help guide us in sorting out 'significance.'

In exploring various ways in which operational controls may fail we may gain information on bettering controls and also on 'significance of environmental aspects.'

And if we begin, as have some, to explore just what sets of operational controls we might think of as 'being relaxed' when we first explore impacts, I suspect that we will find ourselves on the same slippery-slope that we found ourselves on when we played with benchmarks and sensitivity analysis in the first round of forest planning.

In forest planning, as some will remember, we were tasked with exploring certain 'benchmarks' prior to developing forest plan alternatives. Our directives suggested that we would gain information (I'll have to check what type, etc when I get in the office) if we relaxed certain constraints in our models. Those of us who looked closely at this problem realized that the order of relaxation of the constraints proved important as to the nature of the information developed. In practice the so-called sensitivity analysis proved to be quite arbitrary and arguably capricious. We were all very glad to see that type nonsense die a quiet death.

I fear that we may be on another fools' quest here. But maybe I just don't understand what we are attempting and why, when we look at impacts sans 'operational controls.' I'm open for suggestions and enlightenment from whatever source. (And I'll try to edit this to make more sense of my arguments as I get a clearer picture of what we are attempting. In the meantime I thought I'd get this matter out in the open and ask for your help.).

And as we explore this, should we do so, I would also like to determine whether the ISO 14001 or other ISO materials are leading us into this with/without wonderland. If not, then how did we get the notion that it makes sense—if in fact we are doing it at all.

Perhaps we are doing nothing of this sort. Perhaps I had one too many beers when in Richfield earlier this week (and in our training sessions in Ogden before that) and this really isn't happening at all. If the latter, I'll gleefully delete this post and chalk it all up to delusion.

On Systems, Learning, Knowledge, and Ignorance

This week I had an up close and personal look at systems complexity. My hot water heater was leaking, and we'd noticed that our in-house pressure seemed a bit high initially when turning on a facet.

I learned from a colleague that in closed-loop plumbing systems pressure can build as water heats up. I remembered that when we finally got "city water," abandoning our pioneer well that had served folks at our house fine for over a hundred years, we were required to put in a "check valve" so that water, once it entered the house could not go back and commingle with city water. The check valve closed the exit loop for water requiring pressure to build up as water heats up. Simple problem, or so I thought.

I dutifully installed an "expansion tank," something I didn't even know existed until this week. I was told that it was a necessity, and remembered seeing one in my daughtor's new house, so I bought one. I also installed a pressure gauge alongside the expansion tank. My problem was not solved, however. Pressure gradually built up even with the expansion tank. I finally thought to turn off the main valve when pressure reached "normal." The pressure remained constant.

So I replaced the pressure reduction valve on the line coming into the house. Our pressure problems were at an end, so I installed the water heater.

EMS Complexity

I won't bore you with more details of my adventures in plumbing. Through the trials and tribulations of the week, though, I thought about Environmental Management Systems (EMS) and all the various and sundry systems the Forest Service is about to catalogue in terms of environmental aspects, impacts, operational controls, etc., AND submit itself to audit checks on.

Maybe other folks in the Service are a lot smarter than I am, and all will go well with our attempts to monitor and control all the open, adaptive systems (social and environmental) that we deal with. Perhaps we will find time and energy, amid downsizing, outsourcing, and all to add one more complicated system on the top of all the others that don't get enough attention to make them work (assuming that they are worth having at all—no small assumption). But as I think about how hard it was for me to pin-down the simple dynamics of my home water system, I once-again began to doubt our ability to make much headway with EMS.

It is one thing to think through and apply EMS to a production line, and something entirely different to think through and apply EMS to nature and society and culture. We deal more with the adaptations of nature, society and culture in the Service more than we do with simple production processes (changing values and value systems, changing political Regimes Administrations, changing ecosystems and climate regimes, etc.).

Many years ago at dinner John Krutilla (renowned economist from Resources for the Future) remarked that he would think forest planning a success if in 30 years we learned a bit more about production functions. About all we learned was that forests aren’t factories and that emergence, surprise, and novelty are more the hallmarks of forest management than production functions.

Managing Organizational Ignorance

So as we continue on this EMS journey maybe we ought to spend more time exploring novelty, surprise and ignorance. Study adaptive management, and read in detail books like Panarchy, Supply Side Sustainability, Compass and Gyroscope, Discordant Harmonies, and more. And don't forget to wander over and read Michael Zack's Managing Organizational Ignorance—either right now, or later after you've worked yourself into a frenzy over EMS and come up short.

Maybe I’m just a lone naysayer, and next year and every year thereafter we'll sing praises to EMS. If so, be sure and check back here, and leave me a comment and tell me the errors of my ways.

Interrelating Forest Planning and EMS

Like EMS, forest planning is a system. Both are subsystems in adaptive management (AM), with EMS fitting more into AM monitoring and evaluation. Remember that the last "Committee of Scientists" informed us that a forest plan was, paraphrasing, a loose-leaf compendium of all decisions great and small that affect the management of the forest. The Committee of Scientists' language is all-encompassing, rendering the forest plan an interrelated information system. In what follows I'll try to be more specific as to components and interrelationships, so we can figure out how, in particular, the forest plan revision might link up with EMS.

Forest plan revisions receive much Forest Service attention these days. But it is just one event in a ring of events in the plan creation set of AM subsystems. We also have a set of plan implementation subsystems, a set of plan monitoring and evaluation subsystems, etc. Each of these subsystems has its own 'plan, do, check, adapt' learning loop, and all are interrelated one with another.

I use subsystems language because we have a set of plans that logically tier to the forest plan (or are a part of the forest plan family, if we use the Committee of Scientists language): fire management plan, vegetation management plan, hydrologic systems plan, travel management plan, etc. And often these plans have sub plans tiered below them.

Our challenge with EMS (and with forest planning) is to make sense of these systems, and figure out who plays what roles in administering, monitoring, and updating them, as well as to figure out how they interrelate with all else that we do in realms like law, policy, professional practice, and so on.

Forest Plan Revisions are designed to be aspirational, identifying desired conditions, wide-ranging objectives, perhaps a few guidelines, identifying general suitability of areas for differing types of uses, etc. Most of the details are left to sub plans. I see two potential ways EMS might be linked to forest plan revisions.

Two Paths to Link EMS and Forest Plan Revisions

One path we might follow to link an EMS and a forest plan revision might be called "the path of least initial EMS commitment." In this path, we would keep the forest plan revision quite ethereal, identifying desired conditions very broadly, and working our objectives up fuzzily as to how to bridge the gap between existing and desired conditions. This would be in keeping with a philosophy more aligned with scenario planning, where the intent of planning is to "rehash the past, and rehearse the future." Following this path we would commit ourselves to little or nothing in the plan revision, leaving that task to sub-plans, and other activities. Following this path I see no direct links to EMS in the forest plan revision, leaving such to fleshed out in sub plans, program development, and other activities. Am I wrong?

Another path might be called "the path of greater initial EMS commitment." (Anybody have better names? Different paths?) Following this path our forest plan revision objectives would be more tightly defined, not quite getting to activity schedules, but rather committing ourselves to "aspirational" rates of implementation for various general courses of action to attempt to move, say, vegetation from current conditions to desired conditions.

Following this path I see definite linkages from the revision documents to an EMS. I see EMS-related activities (that have environmental aspects and impacts) being identified in the forest plan revision as well as the EMS with "operational controls" being related to various processes at work in the forest and "objectives, targets, and programs" identified that will attempt to move the forest toward desired conditions. Such would provide a beginning to both an EMS and to at least the implementation side of forest plan monitoring and evaluation.

NEPA Challenges

Following the first path, there is a greater chance that NEPA compliance for forest plan revision decisions will be relatively easily effected. The big challenges for NEPA compliance would then rest with the sub plans, and any plans or policies that may be developed programmatically above those sub plans that direct or influence programs or activities.

Following the second path, there is a greater chance that NEPA compliance for the forest plan revision will be a more complicated task, and may well indeed require an EIS, unless the plan is specifically "categorically excluded" from such. Interesting political games!

Nuance

A national fire plan with an associated EIS, for example, may not directly interrelate with a forest plan revision decision, but might more directly relate to a subsequent fire management plan for the forest.. Similarly for a national OHV rule, and so on. I suspect that I would consider the NW forest plan to be more closely interrelated with a forest plan revision than I would a national fire plan. But all is the stuff of complex systems, complex and wicked problems, etc.

We have to remember that both EMS and forest plans are the stuff of systems and subsystems and complexes of actors, arenas, decisions, actions, feedback, and if we are lucky some organizational learning.

Other Paths?

Open… Let's hear from others…….

Developing Activity Lists, Considering 'Aspects/Impacts'

Economists have a long, tortured history with 'impact' assessment, sometimes called'effects' assessment. Of course economists have long, tortured history with pretty much everything they touch. Still, we might gain some insight into both "environmental aspects" and "environmental impacts" viewed under the EMS microscope by looking into what economist have learned. Since we seem to be focusing our attention on activities that have environmental impacts as a means to get to a list of activities that have an environmental aspect, I believe the time is ripe to delve further into impacts. First, though, let's look at aspects.

Aspects

A common idea in economics is that there are no economic problems, but there are many problems that have economic aspects. That is, almost all social problems have economic, along with political, and other social aspects.

What does it mean for a problem to have an economic aspect? It means we can look at the problem through the lens of economics. Alfred Marshall defined the lens like this: "Political Economy or Economics is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life. It examines that part of individual & social action which is most closely connected with the attainment & with the use of material requisites of well-being". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_definition

So what might it mean for a problem (or an activity, good or service) to have an environmental aspect? It might mean that the problem can be examined by looking at parts most closely connected with impacts on the environment. If there are no impacts, there are no aspects, therefore no entry in EMS activity lists. Does that make sense?

Impacts

If we can get this far, and admit that it is by identifying impacts that we begin to understand aspects, then we have to begin to think about which categories of impacts we allow to draw us into the realm of "environmental aspects." Some economists cluster impacts (or effects) into three categories: direct, indirect, induced. In my hasty look into this narrow-niche literature, I came up with this distinction between the three, cast up in an environmental frame:

Direct effect: effect derived from a direct relationship between an agent (or an activity, etc.) and the environment. And, it happens within the problem area under consideration. For example, environmetnal effects from a hiker trammeling a sensitive site.

Indirect effect: effect derived from a second-order (one step removed) relationship between an agent (or activity, etc.) and the environment. These too happen within the area under consideration, albeit a wider area than the particular site. For example, that portion of the environmental effects produced by 'inn-keeping' of a inn-keeper that can be attributed to the keeping of the hiker to allow the visit to the site.

Induced effect: effect derived from third- and higher-order relationships between agents and the environment, outside the area under consideration but still tied to the initial agent. For example, that portion of the environmental effects of all other related suppliers, etc., outside the direct area, in provisionoing either the hiker or the inn-keeper to aid the hiker to effect the 'trammeling.'

Note that we can begin to get a glimpse here of the problematic nature of this line of reasoning . Note further that the whole study of 'causation' is fraught with difficulty, ambiguity, and equivicality (defined as multiple interpretations of the same thing). John Muir stated the problem well when he said, "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." For more on this difficulty, see Wikipedia on causality.

Attempting to Narrow Activity Lists by Aspects/Impacts

We are now to a point where we might begin to sort out which activities have what kind of impacts, so that we can begin to narrow our activity sets (assuming that we stay with our focus on listing certain activities that have environmental impacts—all according to EMS definitions.) {We are also to the point where some will scream: Iverson has once-again wandered beyond the edge of the cliff, having not only daring to peer into the abyss, but leaping off the cliff as well.}

For simplicity, let's assume that we can ignore what I've called "induced impacts." So we are left with direct and indirect. Let's throw away indirect impacts as well, at least for now, and we can pare down our activity list substantially. How much more lucky are we than the hapless economists. Likely we'll end up with activity lists as short as those seen in Region 1 to date. Or maybe only 10 or 20 times as long.

Noxious Weed Management
  Herbicide spraying
  Biological controls
  Mechanical methods

Range Management
  Allotment mgt plans
  Permit issuance
  Improvements

{Note that strikeouts above are in keeping with notion that planning, education, regulation activites are 'operational controls.' More here.}

Timber Management
  Timber harvest
  Disaster relief - incl. salvage
  Free use of timber
  Forest products
  Reforestation
  TSI - thinning,etc.

Transportation System
  Road Construction
  Road Reconstruction
  Road Maintenance
  Road Decommission
  Trail Construction
  Trail Reconstruction
  Bridges and Structures
  Access Management

I cross-walked R1 stuff with my list of "Systems" and think we have to think more about activities (and impacts, operation controls, etc.) within at least the following categories, if the categories make any sense:

• Potable Water Systems (e.g for campgrounds, etc.)
• Irrigation Water Systems (including Dams)
• Sewage Treatment Systems
• Fire Suppression Systems
• Fuels Treatment Systems (to reduce fuel-loading)
• OHV Management and Control Systems
• Scenery Management Systems
• Recreation Visitors Use ('Ecological Footprint' Management) Systems {Maybe?}
• Wilderness Management Systems
• Wild and Scenic Rivers Management Systems
• T & E Habitat Conservation Systems
• Species of Concern/Interest Conservation Systems
• Biology Diversity Conservation/Enhancement Systems
• Environmental Management (Solid Wastes, Pesticide use, Hazardous Materials, Energy)
• Engineering Operations (Fleet management, Buildings and others structures, etc.)
• Hard Rock Minerals Exploration/Development Management Systems
• Oil and Gas Management Systems
• Energy and Power Corridor Management Systems

Forest Plan Tie?

I have no clear idea yet how we might integrate all this with forest plan revision documents, forest plan evaluation and monitoring stuff, etc. I do have a couple of possible routes that we might take. This is to be the stuff of my next post.

Adaptive Management and EMS

Adaptive management (AM) is an enigma. On the one hand it is as simple as learning by doing, thinking, and paying attention to what you've done; comparing what you thought might happen relative to what did happen and readjusting your thinking accordingly.

On the other hand it is as complex, as understanding the transformational processes at work in environmental and social systems, then melding management processes into these complex, adaptive systems in ways that prove complex and adaptive themselves.

Most practices in adaptive management work from a 'change' or 'problem' focus. Something changes or needs to change, as determined from sensing, and sense is made of the situation in order to move the organization forward. In some ways learning is achieved, and if passed on throughout the organization, organizational learning is claimed.

Change may be a small, effected at micro scales, or at larger scales up to and including the organization itself or even society. That's why Gunderson, Holling, and Light titled their compilation of AM writings Barriers and Bridges to the Renewal of Ecosystems and Institutions, and Gunderson and Holling titled theirs Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems.

Adaptive ecosystem management is interrelated with, and built from, among other things:

On the management side: Charles Peirce and John Dewey's Pragmatism, Herbert Simon and James March's Bounded Rationality, Chris Argyris and Donald Schön's Action Science, W. Edwards Deming's Management Method, Peter Senge and others' Organizational Learning, Karl Weick's Sensemaking, and Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers' A Simpler Way.

On the politics side: Pragmatism, Pluralism, Participation.

On the science side: Complex, Adaptive Systems Theory, Ecology, etc.

Environmental Management Systems

The environmental management systems (EMS) approach also builds from some of the basic building blocks of adaptive management. But at least in my interpretation, whereas the primary focus of adaptive management is learning from a variety of sensing mechanisms including 'science and nature,' assessment, planning, doing, evaluation and feedback, etc. EMS tends to focus more narrowly on the learning acquired by primary feedback, design and adjustment of operational controls, etc. That is, EMS is more tightly focused on the evaluation and monitoring aspects of adaptive management.

EMS and Forest Planning

One challenge facing us is to figure out the interrelationship between EMS and the evaluation and monitoring (E & M) required by the 2005 NFMA rule. Even though not explicitly stated, we know that E & M spans the space of 'implementation, effectiveness, and validation' monitoring, evaluation and learning. I argue that EMS does too, although in the initial stages we will see much more tight focus on implementation. Our challenge will be to design EMS in ways that are not too complex and cumbersome that begin AND end with implementation, and associated single-loop learning.

Another challenge will be to design our EMS system so that is doesn't become a tail wagging the dog of adaptive management. To do so will be to repeat the mistake we made with comprehensive rational planning when planning over-dominated an adaptive management approach.

A final challenge will be to develop the type organizational culture that encourages individual and organizational learning. This challenge and promise of organizational betterment, is highlighted in Adaptive Management: A Tool for Conservation Practitioners, from the Biodiversity Support Program.

ISO and 'Environmental Aspects'

Each piece of an environmental management system (EMS) is designed to work with other pieces. To avoid 'the blind men and the elephant' problem, we need to keep the general EMS system design in mind as we develop any pieces. For example, we might think of education, planning, and regulatory enforcement as activities worthy of developing environmental aspects for since each, if done right, can have very positive outcomes on the environment. But by the ISO standard, we might instead envision them as "environmental controls" that help us reduce environmental impact via a different means.

Note that 'environmental policy' is the driver for implementing and improving an organization's environmental management system so that the organization can maintain and potentially improve its environmental performance. …[P]olicy should reflect the commitment of top management to comply with applicable legal requirements and other requirements, to prevent pollution and to continually improve. The environmental policy forms the basis upon which the organization sets its objectives and targets. …. {Environmental performance: measurable results of an organization's management of its environmental aspects.}

The key pieces of the EMS jigsaw puzzle seem to be environmental policy, 'activities, products and services,' environmental aspects, environmental impacts, environmental objectives, environmental targets, environmental performance, preventative action, corrective action, and any that I may have missed. Note that I do not include 'audits' since I view them with suspicion given my W. Edwards Deming management-theory leanings. At best audits serve as means to other ends. At worst they become self-serving and debilitating to organizations.

ISO 14001 Standard (Excerpts)

A.1 General requirements

…requires an organization to

a) establish … environmental policy,
b) identify environmental aspects .. in order to identify environmental impacts of significance,
c) identify … applicable legal requirements and other requirements,
d) identify priorities and set appropriate environmental objectives and targets,
e) establish … programme(s) to implement the policy and achieve objectives and meet targets,
f) facilitate planning, control, monitoring, preventative corrective actions, auditing and review activities to ensure both that the policy is complied with and that the environmental management system remains appropriate, and
g) be capable of adapting to changing circumstances.

An organization with no existing [EMS should conduct a review covering four key areas]

• identification of environmental aspects…,
• identification of applicable legal requirements and other requirements…,
• examination of existing environmental management practices and procedures, …
• evaluation of previous emergency situations and accidents.

Environmental Aspect

3.6 Environmental aspect: element of an organization's activities or products or services that can interact with the environment.

4.3.1. The organization shall establish, implement, and maintain a procedure(s)

a) to identify the environmental aspects of its activities, products, and services within the defined scope of its environmental management system that it can control and those that it can influence taking into account planned or new developments, or new or modified activities, products and services, and
b) to determine those aspects that have or can have significant impact(s) on the environment (i.e. significant environmental aspects).

A.3.1 An organization should identify the environmental aspects within the scope of its environmental management system, taking into account the inputs and outputs (both intended and unintended) associated with its current and relevant-past activities, products and services, planned new developments, or new or modified activities, products and services. This process should consider normal and abnormal operating conditions, shut-down and start-up conditions, as well as reasonably foreseeable emergency situations…

Organizations do not have to consider each product, component or raw material input individually. They may select categories of activities, products and services to identify their environmental aspects.

Although there is no single approach for identifying environmental aspects, the approach selected could for example consider

a) emissions to air,
b) releases to water,
c) releases to land,
d) use of raw materials and natural resources,
e) use of energy,
f) energy emitted, e.g. heat, radiation, vibration,
g) waste and by-products, and
h) physical attributes, e.g. size, shape, colour, appearance

In addition to those environmental aspects an organization can control directly, an organization should also consider aspects that it can influence, e.g. those related to good and services used by the organization and those related to products and services that it provides. Some guidance to evaluate control and influence is provided below. However, in all circumstances it is the organization that determines the degree of control and also the aspects that it can influence.

Consideration should be given to aspects related to the organization's activities, products and services, such as

• design and development,
• manufacturing processes,
• packaging and transportation,
• environmental performance and practices of contractors and suppliers,
• waste management,
• extraction and distribution of raw materials and natural resources,
• distribution, use, and end-of-life of products, and
• wildlife and biodiversity.

… Changes to the environment, either adverse or beneficial, that result wholly or partially from environmental aspects are called environmental impacts.

Forest Service Experience to Date

It seems that we are at a point where we commonly equate environmental aspect and "activities," rightly or wrongly. In a recent slide presentation, contractor Lynn Penniman provided these as examples of environmental aspects:

• Timber Harvesting
• Road Construction
• Prescribed Burning
• Wildlife Management
• Timber Sale Layout
• Site Prescription Planning
• Maintenance of Road Construction Equipment
• Protection of Special Sites

I notice that "planning'" is included in Penniman's list, although in my introductory remarks I have suggested that we might consider it to be an "operational control" rather than an "environmental aspect." So too, perchance, with "protection of Special Sites." Confusion rules! So be it. We are in the preliminary design stage.

National Ecological Observatory Network's Role In M & E

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I'd love to see a system (for forest plan monitoring and evaluation, for EMS, for both perchance) that used indicators as simple at the famed Chesapeake Bay "tennis shoe indicator" complimented with more rigorous measurements that are developed more by FS and other researchers than by NFS and national forest/districts.

Yesterday I got an email talking about the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). I didn't even know such a thing existed. Good news! Maybe this coalition effort can do what the National Biology Survey (Clinton-era sponsored organization that succumbed to the ABC (Anything But Clinton) axe shortly after the last Administration change) could not.

Maybe, just maybe this is the beginning of being able to answer some for-now unanswerable questions about biological diversity, species endangerment, etc. that have plagued forest planning and management under rules and regulations that pretended that answers would be forthcoming if only forest-level practitioners were better at compliance with the rules (e.g. the 1982 NFMA Regulation). I'll not conjecture here as to whether or not the 2005 NFMA rule (and accompanying Manuals and Handbooks, ISO 14001 standards, etc.) will serve us better than did the 1982 rule and other trappings of the bygone era, and era I have referred to as moving from multiple use to sustained conflict.

Questions for we who are charged with keeping track of all the various pieces of information that feed into our various assessment, planning, monitoring and evaluation, performance accountability, etc. systems: How are we supposed to keep track of who has what information? Is there a clearinghouse for such? Are any of our Forest Service forums helpful in making sense of this? Do we have a group, or several interrelated groups charged with keeping us all up to speed on who is doing what? Will someone, likely from the WO, please step up and set up a blog (or something better) to help us better understand what is going on in this area? Or is such already in place and as usual I'm the last to know, being sucked too deep into my computer screen and my blog-fascination.

Here's part of what the email tells us about the NEON:

NEON will support systematic study of seven US ecological priorities: invasive species, infectious disease, climate change, land-use change, biogeochemical cycles, biodiversity, and aquatic ecosystems. These elements are reflected in three overarching questions that the Observatory will address:

1. How are ecological systems affected by changes in land use, climate, and biogeochemistry across a range of spatial and temporal scales?
2. How do changes in the availability and distribution of the Nation's water affect ecological systems and what are the feedbacks that in turn affect water resources?
3. How do the patterns and movement of genes and organisms across the continent affect biodiversity, ecosystem function, and the spread of infectious diseases and invasive species?A standardized set of sensor technologies, Biotic survey protocols, and cyberinfrastructure will enable continuous, long-term data collection, storage, and dissemination. NEON will deploy sensors, systemaic biotic sampling, and cyberinfrastructure within 20 distinct climatic domains across the United States (including two distinct domains in Alaska (tundra/taiga), Hawaii/Pacific Tropical, and Atlantic Neotropical). The domain boundaries were determined using a cluster analysis of climate state variables, combined with air mass seasonality data. (For more on the climate domains, see http://www.neoninc.org/archive/2005/08/first_draft_yie_1.html)

Within each domain, infrastructure will be deployed in three land-use/land-cover types: wild, managed, and urbanized, each of which will contain transition zones between terrestrial and aquatic systems. Every NEON site will feature a range of standardized instruments deployed at three fixed locations to provide critical data streams related to the ecological priorities and to sample a suite of key organisms that are sensitive to ecological change. Biotic measurements will be based on sampling of organisms as different as soil microbes and deer mice as well as many forms in between. In addition, mobile capacity will be deployed to enable classic campaign-style investigations and to respond to sudden ecological events, such as the outbreak of an infectious disease.

At its October 17-21, 2005 meeting in Washington, DC, the NNDC focused much attention on the ongoing task of defining the generalized instrument arrays to be deployed in NEON. On the issue of experiments: The NNDC decided that experiments will be described as unique scientific opportunities that are only possible with the NEON infrastructure in place, but that the experiments will not be implemented in the first phase of NEON construction.

On October 18th, the NNDC briefed the NEON Advisory Board and received input from the Board on a range of issues, including design, the climate domain structure, potential experiments, partnership opportunities, and progress toward the final draft of the Integrated Science and Education Plan (ISEP). Drafts of both the ISEP and the Network and Informatics Baseline Design (NIBD) have been submitted to NSF. We are currently revising the ISEP in response to initial input from the Foundation and reviewers from the ecological community.

Early next year we expect to be able to circulate an ISEP that elaborates the specifics of the NEON design. Both documents will undergo independent reviews coordinated by NSF.

Deming and Welch: On Leadership, Quality, and More

I have no idea how history will treat the transformation of General Electric from an aging industrial dinosaur to what we think of it today. Neither do I dare think I know how history will treat GE's long-time CEO Jack Welch, alias Neutron Jack.

Right now, however, both Jack Welsh and W. Edwards Deming are both credited as masters at getting organizations to perform better, moving toward excellence. There are similarities and differences in their approaches. I stumbled onto a comparison yesterday, and decided to share some of it, adding just a bit of my own spin as I go. I am putting this together to aid us as we evaluate both our approach to EMS and our ongoing consideration as to EMS as a path to quality improvement.

Jack Welch's "Strategies" (compiled from here, and here)

1. Embrace change, Don’t' Fear It.
   
2. Stop Managing, Start Leading. There is no substitute for leadership.
   
3. Cultivate Managers Who Share Your Vision.
   
4. Face Reality, Then Act Decisively.
   
5. Be Simple, be Consistent, and Hammer Your Message Home.
   
6. Be Number 1 or Number 2, But Don't Narrow Your Market.
   
7. Look for the Quantum Leap! Then go for it!
   
8. Fix, Close, or Sell—Whatever Isn't First-Rate.
   
9. Don't Focus on the Numbers.
   
10. Always assume that out there, somewhere, somone has a better idea.
    
11. Plagiarize — It's Legitimate: Create a Learning Culture.
    
12. Get Rid of the Managers, Get Rid of the Bureaucracy. Every layer is a bad layer.
    
13. Be lean and agile like a small company. Managing less is managing more.
    
14. Tear Down the Boundaries.
    
15. Three Secrets: Speed, Simplicity, and Self-Confidence.
    
16. Take the "Boss Element" Out of Your Company.
    
17. Create an Atmosphere Where Workers Feel Free to Speak Out. Enabling Fierce Conversations.
    
18. S-t-r-e-t-c-h! Reach for the stars!
    
19. Have Global Brains—and Build Diverse and Global Teams.
    
20. Live Quality: Drive cost and Speed for Competitive Advantage.
    
21. Make Quality Every Employee's "job." There is a better way, find it!
    
22. To Achieve Quality: Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control.
    
23. If You Cannot Rely on an Employee's Integrity, Get Rid of That Employee NOW.
    
24. Energetic People Create Energetic Companies. The opposite is also true.
    
25. The past? Never heard of it!

Different Verison of Jack Welch's Strategiesas sorted out by 1000 ventures.com {Note that this hyperlink give more information on each of the Strategies.}

1. Lead
   
2. Manage Less
   
3. Articulate Your Vision
   
4. Simplify
   
5. Get Less Formal
   
6. Energize Others
   
7. Face Reality, Act Decisively
   
8. See Challenge as an Opportunity
   
9. Get Good Ideas from Everywhere
   
10. Follow Up
    
11. Get rid of bureaucracy
    
12. Eliminate Boundaries
    
13. Put Values First
    
14. Cultivate Leaders
    
15. Create a Learning Organization
    
16. Involve Everyone
    
17. Make Everybody a Team Player
    
18. S-t-r-e-t-c-h!
    
19. Instill Confidence
    
20. Have Fun
    
21. Be No. 1 or No. 2
    
22. Live Quality
    
23. Constantly focus on Innovation
    
24. Live Speed
    
25. Behave Like a Small Company

W.Edwards Deming's "14 Points" (for comparison)

1. Create constancy of purpose for improvement of product and service
   
2. Adopt the new philosophy—of intolerance for poor workmanship and sullen service
   
3. Cease dependence upon mass inspection. Quality is not an outcome of quality control inspections. Rather,quality comes from basic improvement in organizational processes, where workers are enlisted and gain ownership in the process.
   
4. End the practice of awarding business on price-tag alone
   
5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service
   
6. Institute Training
   
7. Institute leadership. The job of the supervisor is not to tell people what to do or to punish them but to lead.
   
8. Drive out fear—of change, of being victims in the blame game, etc.
   
9. Break down barriers between staff areas, etc.
   
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortation, and targets
    
11. Eliminate numerical quotas
    
12. Remove barriers to pride of workmanship
    
13. Institute a Vigorous Program of Education and Retraining
    
14. Take action to accomplish the transformation. It will take a top management team with a plan of action to jump-start the quality revolution. Thereafter, top management must commit themselves completely to the task of overseeing the revolution. Workers can't do it on their own, nor can managers. A critical mass of people in the company must understand the Fourteen Points as well as the Seven Deadly Diseases.

I view Welch's approach to be tough-love Deming, perchance better suited to the cultural rigidity of many US large industrial and governmental organizations. Deming's approach is one more geared for organizations ready to step up to the responsibilities of managing as adult communities. Either way, the organizations that come from living these strategies are far different from those many of us live in today.

Whiskey Jack Forest and A Simpler Way

Yesterday I Googled up an effort in Canada that ties a Forest Environmental Management System (FEMS) to local sustainable forest management indicators. It looks much like what I'd expect us to do if we tied our EMSs to much-talked-about "Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Development" approach we've been grappling with in the US. Here's a link to the effort on Whiskey Jack forest. {Note that the "Sustainable Forest Management Plan" is the most relevant thing on this page, but is a very large pdf. So if you view it, give yourself some time for a download. Hint: open in a separate window.}

Local Level Sustainable Forest Management Indicators are embedded in the former pdf, and also more fully developed in a [pdf] available here. {Note: This pdf is fairly large as well}

I'm fearful of these highly detailed approaches. I fear that if we try to jump into this water all at once, we'll be swept downstream, never really even knowing what hit us. It reminds me of a story I heard about Jack Welch' vetoing W. Edward Deming's approach at GE because it was too complicated for them. Deming's approach is dirt simple relative to this stuff. I fear that it may be all one grand-scale 'paper chase.'

A Simpler Way

What I'd rather see us do is to develop a system that at once conforms to ISO standards but also allows us to grow our way into a simpler-way to monitoring and evaluation.

I'd love to see a system that used indicators as simple at the famed Chesapeake Bay "tennis shoe indicator" complimented with more rigorous measurements that are developed more by FS and other researchers than by NFS and national forest/districts. I'd love to see a system that begins (using an automobile example) by attempting to design horse-drawn carriages, then moves to horseless carriages, and in about a hundred years (hopefully 20 instead) moves more to the type automobiles we enjoy today.

I'd love a system that lets a district ranger or forester supervisor say that they want a grazing-systems indicator of, say, "no dirt in the creek." I'd love an open system that would allow someone else to counter with, "I like dirt in the creek, but only when it is due to appropriate trammeling by grazing animals that will break down high stream-banks that have been caused by over-grazing and other ecosystem degrading practices. I like dirt in the creek, but only when it travels only short distances, doesn't completely bury vegetative structure, then helps to build up the steam bottom to compliment stream-bank trammeling."

I'd love to see a system that allows for this type give-and-take across the fences of the back forty, on the tailgate of pickup trucks, in the barroom, and in the coffee shop so that we can gain better perspectives about ecology, economy, society, Nature and more. I'd love to see a system that allows for both approaches, set up in an environment where we can experiment, can learn.

I fear instead that we will once-again create the type over-complexified procedural paper chase that we've had for so long in our planning culture, in our performance accountability and targets culture, and in many other bureaucratic culture forms. I fear that we'll set up systems of tight targeting, monitoring, and correction that disallow the kind of experimentation necessary to stay ahead of changing environments, changing societies, etc.

Can we get there? Is there a simpler way available to us? Will we fight for it? We'll see.

First Steps In R4

In our Region, we are committed to tying our initial EMSs tightly to our Forest Plan Revisions (with some possible add-ons for a very few program areas that want to be 'early adaptors'). This means that we are going to take our largely aspirational deired conditions, along with objectives, guidelines, suitability determinations, and special area designations, etc. and somehow tie them to the various components of EMS.

Later, as we begin implementing the plans, developing sub plans, and so on we'll put some flesh on the 'bare bones' of our initial effort. We are approaching this in stages, both because it makes sense to feel out way through the mazes of EMS compliance, and because we are trying to get our first forests draft EMS packages done in the next three months, by February 2006.

The first trick will be to take our desired conditions statements, etc. and see how we crosswalk them into EMS. If we had been working more diligently on or forest plan monitoring and evaluation, and draft plan approval rationales we might have a less arduous task ahead. But alas I'm afraid that we haven't been doing this. Perhaps we'll know more as to whether this approach makes sense after our Forests meeting Nov. 14-16.

In the meantime I will be searching around trying to figure out what other Regions are trying, and asking them to help us with that search by telling ALL here just what they think might work. Let's work together to design a system so that we (we the people) can learn, can experiment, can play.

Environmental Aspects: 'Systems Management' Focus

{ Updated Nov. 7 }

Why not try to approach 'environmental aspects' and other aspects of EMS in as simple a fashion as possible? That way we can start small, focused tightly on what we generally do, then build the system gradually outward toward specific authority/responsibility matches (and more detail) as we more fully flesh-out our EMS, Planning, assessment and other systems in the next few years.

Building from R1's stuff, including, FSM categoreis, I threw together a preliminary list of programmatic systems. It is well known that you can't effectively manage systems unless and until you have explicit, if fuzzy models of those systems. So maybe we can begin with 'systems,' then try to distill aspects, impacts, controls, etc. from them, rather that starting with FSM categories and trying to get to aspects that way.

Note that I grouped things to help facilitate more lumping--I'd prefer to err on the too lumpy side of the divide rather than the too-complex side.

Let me know if you think this has merit, and also any specific recommendations/enhancements, etc. that you think of.

Trial Programmatic Systems List

Roads Systems (including bridges)
Trails Systems (including bridges)

Potable Water Systems
Irrigation Water Systems (including Dams)
Sewage Treatment Systems

Timber Sales Management System
Vegetation Treatment for Timber Stand Improvement Systems

Fire Suppression Systems
Fuels Treatment Systems (to reduce fuel-loading)

Rangeland Improvement Systems
Rangeland Allotment Management Systems

OHV Management and Control Systems
Scenery Management Systems
Recreation Visitors 'Ecological Footprint' Management Systems (Maybe?)
Wilderness Management Systems
Wild and Scenic Rivers Management Systems

T & E Habitat Conservation Systems
Species of Concern/Interest Conservation Systems
Biology Diversity Conservation/Enhancement Systems

Environmental Management (Solid Wastes, Pesticide use, Hazardous Materials, Energy)
Engineering Operations (Fleet management, Buildings and others structures, etc.)

Hard Rock Minerals Exploration/Development Management Systems
Oil and Gas Management Systems
Energy and Power Corridor Management Systems

Invasive Species Management Systems

Land Exchange Management Systems

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Stewardship Contracting Systems (This is probably a mis-fit)

Soil Conservation Systems?
Air Quality Systems?