Charter
forest proposal is all talk,
but that's a significant start
By
Greg Lakes, editor
Headwaters News
March 27, 2002
They're the talk of the West, and maybe the next major clash over
forest policy, but so far charter forests are still mostly just talk.
The debate started with a two-line ambiguity in President Bush's budget last
month, but it has caught the imagination of many and the skepticism of many
more.
And if it turns out to be more than just another way to divide us-vs.-them,
it could reshape the way public lands are managed.
There's little
disagreement that the current system is too tangled to be effective. Agriculture
Undersecretary Mark Rey, who oversees national forests, calls the process "muscle
bound," and Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth's term is "analysis
paralysis."
The solution, they say, is management outside the agency's normal lines. Rey
promised the process wouldn't exempt projects from environmental laws, and he
said he hopes to have worked out more details by next October, about the only
substantive things the administration has said about charter forests.
The rest is opinion, mistrust and hope.
Critics, including spokespeople for a variety of conservation groups, argue
that giving more control to local committees is just the latest GOP attempt
to privatize public land.
The first draft came out with a phrase that said the new process would shorten
any review of endangered species. That immediately set off environmentalists,
and the Forest Service's quick amendment did little to appease them.
One looming question is whether
charter forest projects will be subject to appeal. Some projects touted
as precedents, including the creation of the Valles Caldera Trust to guide management
of the former Baca Ranch in northern New Mexico, only confuse the debate.
The Valles Caldera Trust can be sued for its decisions, but its management choices
are exempt from any kind of administrative appeal, and critics say such conditions
would eliminate the chance for most average citizens to protest.
The timber industry also comes off as guarded. Chris West, vice president of
the American Forest Resource Council, said local
committees are fine, but only if things get done on the ground. Shifting
the paralysis closer to home will do little good, he said.
Rey says Congress must flesh out the details, and the idea has
support from New Mexico Rep. Tom Udall, a Democrat, and Colorado Rep. Scott
McInnis, a Republican and head of the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health.
McInnis last November urged Bosworth to consider some form of collaboration
to improve national forest management.
Meanwhile, the preliminary give and take goes on.
Montana author Rick Bass said that judging by his neighbors' experience with
local salvage sales, Bush's Forest Service is
too mired in all-or-nothing thinking to consider management outside the
pale.
The Arizona Daily Sun argues on its editorial page that several local projects
would have been settled more quickly and more fairly by local interests, and
if
environmentalists insist on confrontation, they should be first to be shut
out.
Writers on the Range columnist Michael Anderson argues that administration policies
on energy production on public lands should be evidence
enough as to the incentives underlying charter forests.
The Idaho Falls Post Register editorializes that public land management is so
broken that any
potential fix deserves a try.
But all the talking may be the proposal's greatest contribution. Economist Randall
O'Toole proposed revamping the Forest Service in a 1988 book, and he organized
the Forest Options Group, 19 people representing Forest Service, industry and
environmentalists, which pitched five test projects in 1999.
Various pilot projects since have included varying degrees of collaboration
and local control, all with what has become the usual acrimony.
But as people keep talking, consensus is building, slowly, that something needs
to change, starting with agreement that Western forests are not being very well
managed from afar.
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