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Stewardship
contracts bundle conservation with timber harvest
By
Priscilla Salant
for Headwaters News
Standing in a snow-covered parking lot in the Lolo National Forest
and raising his voice above the roar of snowmobiles, the Forest
Service district ranger spoke in earnest and without irony:
"Thanks to stewardship contracting, we bought 18 of the new,
sweet-smelling toilets this year," he said. "Normally,
I would have had to compete with other districts for money allocated
to toilets. It might have taken me 10 years to get these toilets
installed."
As a member of the regional evaluation team for the Forest Service’s
Stewardship Contracting Demonstration Program, I appreciated the
ranger’s candor. I had been struggling to understand the complexities
of new policies being tested under a series of laws passed by Congress
starting in 1999.
But speaking to us on that cold morning last January, the district
ranger made it all crystal clear. Stewardship contracting had given
him the flexibility to make management decisions in the best interests
of the district for which he is responsible.
Don’t misunderstand me, though. This is about more than sweet-smelling
toilets. Stewardship contracting was the brainchild of a small group
of loggers, environmentalists, and civic leaders from Montana who
set out to change the Forest Service back in 1995.
Instead of selling tracts of standing timber to the mills, this
group wanted the agency to work with qualified contractors to achieve
a wide array of objectives related to forest stewardship. Their
efforts paid off in 1999 when the U.S. Congress authorized 28 so-called
Section 347 pilot projects, and another 28 in subsequent legislation.
The projects are spread across eight of the nine Forest Service
regions, with the greatest number in Region 1.
Supporters see stewardship contracting as a new – and much
better – way of doing business for two reasons. First, they
point to a radically changed administration process:
-- Stewardship contracts can include a variety of land-management
tasks in one "bundled" contract. Not all contracts will
look the same, but generally speaking, the contractor whose bid
is accepted agrees to harvest forest products and provide restoration
services.
-- The value of products harvested from any given site is used to
offset the costs of stewardship services. For example, at the Lolo
National Forest site mentioned above, receipts from the timber sale
are being used to cover the cost of decommissioning roads, restoring
streams, and treating weeds. This is referred to as "goods
for services." Under traditional contracts, timber sale receipts
are returned to the federal treasury.
-- Contracts may be awarded on the basis of "best
value" to the government rather than to the highest bidder
(for timber sales) or lowest bidder (for service contracts). This
allows the Forest Service to consider contractors’ past performance,
experience, and ability to complete work in a timely manner, in
addition to the dollar value of the bid. Furthermore, preference
may be given to local contractors.
-- Stewardship contracts designate which timber is
to be harvested by prescription – the desired end result –
rather than relying on Forest Service employees to mark trees to
be sold and to supervise the harvest.
Second, supporters of stewardship contracting point to a new way
of involving the public in decision-making. Local people representing
diverse interests are to be involved in developing projects, as
well as in monitoring and evaluating the projects as they are carried
out.
At several sites, local groups are directly involved
in doing the on-the-ground work.
--
Tom Kovilecky, former supervisor
of the Nez Perce National Forest.
Equally important is how stewardship contracting is
not a new way of doing business: Pilot projects are not exempt from
NEPA requirements. Based on what we have seen so far in Region 1,
stewardship projects are no less likely to be appealed and litigated
– despite the intense collaborative planning processes –
than non-stewardship projects.
Anyone familiar with the current state of public lands management
will not be surprised to hear that stewardship contracting has generated
a fair amount of controversy. The greatest concern is that "goods
for services"gives district rangers an enormous incentive to
harvest more timber and thus pay for more services.
(more)
One of the stewardship contract projects
will thin trees near Priest Lake, Idaho. For details,
see the Spokesman-Review story from Feb. 7.
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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 the
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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