Forest Environmental Management Systems

Blogging in Government: Catch the Wave

Andy Budd is a blogger in the UK. He recently shared his "take" on Blogging in Government (Dec. 8, 2005). Here are Budd's key findings:

• …weblogs were great for internal communication and a way of cutting down the huge weight of email most large companies are drowning in.
  
• …weblogs were essentially free (or very cheap), lightweight and disposable content management systems.
  
• …blogs could be used for internal knowledge management, by encouraging key staff to blog their collective knowledge rather than keeping it locked up.
  
• …benefits of blogging to management ... how staff blogs could help managers know what was going on in their organisation. Conversely, it would also let staff know what their manager was doing.
  
• …governments could use external blogs to connect with the people they served. An external blog could really help demystify the workings of government, while at the same time creating a sense of empathy and trust.

Read "the rest of the story" for Budd's advice on prudent use and managment of blogs and bloggers:

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love EMS

I'm not sure when it happened, but sometime recently I began to love EMS—likely for all the wrong reasons.

Some observers have found forest service planning and management to be strange indeed. So a Dr. Strangelove analogy may fit. Dick Behan long ago suggested that it was "Time to Punt" when the agency codified planning into law via RPA/NFMA. Before that Sally Fairfax declared NEPA to be a "Disaster in the Environmental Movement," that proliferation of paper would overshadow any efforts to manage the land. Herbert Kaufman, author of the much-touted The Forest Ranger suggested that he envisioned deep trouble ahead for the forest service as he was researching his book. That trouble has since come to pass. See Kaufman's The Paradox of Excellence.

As for me, I see the agency at best trying to make some sense of its actions and the actions of others in the context of adaptive management. At worst, I see all as bureaucratic bungling, careerism, and professionalism run amok. The Forest Service has been accused as being maladaptive rather than adaptive in its approach. The 2005 Regulation for NFMA—the "new rule"—is supposed to change all that. Some of us are doubtful. Enter EMS!

EMS is a system developed from and structured to deal with closed loop manufacturing processes, not open adaptive natural and social systems. It will prove challenging indeed, I suspect, to see how such a system will overlay the "social mess" of forest service planning and management.

If we work EMS up with care, it may daylight the truly complex nature of our undertaking and the political wickedness of the decision-framing and decision-making faced by the agency. In this sense EMS can be a catalyst to aid the agency in moving from maladaptive to adaptive behavior.

If we work EMS up with care for the forest service we will necessarily approach the task much differently from what many other organizations have done, since our "social mess" of wicked problems and open, adaptive systems cries out for an approach much different from those in use for closed-loop manufacturing enterprises.

If we work up EMS blindly, on the other hand, we'll find it to just one more bureaucratic burden, one more way that practitioners are drawn into paper chases and process-chases that detract from our ability to interact and adapt to the ever-changing systems that enfold the agency. In this light EMS may become more a cancer than a catalyst.

The challenge is to disallow EMS to grow into a cancer that will on its own gobble up money and energy without doing the work of adaptive improvement. The challenge is also to nurture EMS into a true support system that helps ride herd on current rogue behavior in other management systems.

My cynical side tells me that the forest service will do with EMS what it did with Planning and NEPA, and Sally Farifax and others with have a heyday with it as the latest, greatest paper chase. My hopeful side says, "Let's work to make it otherwise."

The "Legal and Others Requirements" Puzzle

I've been tasked to dig up "Legal and Other Requirements." My first impression is that we don't want to go into minute detail for state, county and municipal requirements. Instead, we want to start with the basics of federal law, and add only what we need. Right now our focus is mainly on the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts as they come back our way via State mandates.

I believe that we will fully flesh out Legal and Other Requirements over the next, say, 20 years as we develop significant aspects, impacts, operational controls, rather than compiling them in detail at the outset. The task is manageable that way, and we can check our promise-making, promise-keeping as we go.

Are any of you ahead of us on this task? Are any of you as concerned as we are that we not over-promise here?

Let's begin with "The Principal Laws Relating to Forest Service Activities" as an early indicator of the magnitude of the task when dealing with the many laws that deal with forest management and use, land deals, boundary disputes, and much more.

The "Principal Laws..." tome by itself might keep an auditor busy for days. Not really, 'cause an auditor would likely only check to see that we are aware of our legal mandates. (I suspect that we'll have to come up with an up-to-date electronic version of "The Principal Laws..." at some point.)

Our bigger task is to convince ourselves, our auditors, and the public that we pay strict attention to the law, following Chief Thomas' admonition to "Tell the truth, obey the law, and practice ecosystem management." I say this, recognizing the impossibility of anyone knowing all the nuances of several hundred legal mandates, let alone "other requirements."

Developing an information system to help keep track of it all will help some, but the task still seems herculean. Oh well! That's what we get when we try to be everything to everyone: Pinchot's "Greatest good for the greatest number in the long run."