Conservation on the cusp: the reformation of national forest policy in the Sierra Nevada.

• Author: Ruth, Lawrence

ABSTRACT

From 1960 to 1999, a variety of laws and other public policies influenced the management of the national forests in the Sierra Nevada. Existing laws and new statutes contained directives for the planning, management, conservation and preservation of national forest lands and resources. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) forced the U.S. Forest Service to disclose information about land management plans and their impacts. The stattre also led to greater public awareness of management issues and increased public involvement in agency decision-making. As a result, efforts to increase timber production in Sierra Nevada national forests met increased public scrutiny, and with political and legal opposition. The National Forest Management Act of 1976 (NFMA) mandated extensive planning to promote effective and efficient conservation and use of forest resources and to resolve forest management controversies. However, the conflict between the demand for increased timber and demands for increased recreation and wilderness preservation limited NFMA's effectiveness. Discord over national forest policies did not begin with NFMA, but the broad scope of land management planning generated remarkable public attention and controversy. Public opposition to increased clearcutting and other activities that potentially led to impacts on wildlife habitat and other aspects of ecosystems led to administrative and legal challenges to national forest plans.

In the early 1990s, the Forest Service's reinterpretation of existing law impelled it to extensively revise both its management objectives in the Sierra Nevada and its planning for the national forests in the region. Agency planning sought to better incorporate scientific knowledge about species and habitat requirements into an ecosystem management strategy. Instead of ending the uncertainty over the conservation and management of forested lands and resources, eight years of agency planning pursuant to this new perspective engendered additional controversies. The continuing inability to resolve environmental issues strongly indicates both a need and opportunity for significant changes in the institutional structures governing the national forests of these lands.

INTRODUCTION

Natural resource policy and planning initiatives in the Sierra Nevada, California's spectacular mountain region, have had profound implications for the management of the area's natural resources. This study explores a range of public policies and issues associated with national forest management, and examines their impact on the administration of the national forests of the Sierra Nevada during the period from 1960 to 1999. Environmental activism, public interest litigation, internal agency decisions, and legislative initiatives of the past four decades have changed the traditional management practices of the federal resource management agencies. Environmental politics, directly or indirectly, led to many policy modifications. Evolving scientific understanding of natural resources intersected with broader social and legal developments. Reforming natural resource management led to major statutory, administrative and legal changes. As a result, national forest management policy for the national forests of the United States has been dramatically restructured during this period. Initiatives for reform have addressed two interrelated phenomena that present significant challenges in governance for the region: 1) political activism resulting from environmental and social concerns; and 2) incapacity of public institutions and private market forces to improve environmental conservation and management. This research evaluates the progress of these initiatives and offers a "rethinking" of the prospects for natural resource management and ecosystem conservation in the Sierra Nevada.

Prior to World War II, the Forest Service had established a reputation for expert management in public administration, and for being an able player in national politics.(1) After World War II, many aspects of national forest management became increasingly controversial. A post-war building boom created unprecedented demand for timber from the national forests. Simultaneously, increasing numbers of Americans began to look to the national forests for recreation and for other opportunities. Conflicts developed over the Forest Service's management and allocation of these lands. Consequently, support for Forest Service management began to erode. By the 1960s and early 1970s, agency decisions were increasingly subject to challenge by recreational user groups and others.(2) Despite these controversies over national forest management, the Forest Service continued to enjoy an excellent reputation among politicians and scholars as a model of effectiveness in bureaucratic management.(3) This legacy makes it particularly intriguing to follow the course of administrative change in an agency so rich in tradition and in expertise.

The first part of this article explores the period from 1960 through the middle of the 1970s, during which time the Forest Service responded to a series of national directives to develop management policies for the "multiple use" and "sustained yield"(4) of forest lands and natural resources. This study explores the development of public activism surrounding national forest management and responses by the Forest Service, courts, and Congress. The Forest Service struggled to satisfy political demands to increase utilization of forest resources, while simultaneously struggling to adapt to changing social conditions and provide for additional recreational uses and users. This article traces the initial political and legal implications of these developments and the Forest Service's responses in the Sierra Nevada.

The second part of this article describes the effects of environmental legislation and judicial decisions that reshaped administrative government as they unfolded in the national forests in the Sierra Nevada.(5) The National Forest Management Act of 1976 (NFMA)(6) and the implementation of the statute's provisions required the agency to develop land and resource management plans for each national forest. NFMA planning was conceived as a method to provide for multiple use of the forests while ensuring resource sustainability and conservation of biological diversity. The most important characteristic of the course of national forest policy during this time, however, is not what thc agency did or did not accomplish in terms of planning or by refining its management. Instead, the most significant aspect of the period is the influence of political activism and adversarial legalism(7) that surrounded forest planning, leading to substantive change to Forest Service plans elsewhere in other regions, and directly influencing the agency's response to these forces in the Sierra Nevada. The Forest Service was under pressure from various interests with different views regarding the future of the national forests. Moreover, the Forest Service leadership did not believe that NFMA required substantial shifts in the admixture of resource use and preservation in the national forests, nor was it inclined to accept the management objectives offered by environmental groups and their supporters. The early response to NFMA planning by environmental activists in the Sierra was not entirely successful in transforming national forest management, but these protests sent a signal that the Forest Service could not continue to favor resource utilization and development over conservation without facing strong opposition. The protracted planning process failed to ease political and legal struggles over resource management. These disputes eventually forced the Forest Service to abandon its emphasis on commodities and to restructure natural resource management methods and priorities to better incorporate scientific information into national forest planning and management.(8)

The final part of this article describes a period during which the Forest Service continued to face serious attacks, including fundamental challenges to its competence, authority, and mission. This section chronicles the continuing struggle by the Forest Service and others to find new methods to respond to resource conservation issues. By the 1990s, the Forest Service realized that it had made erroneous assumptions regarding legal provisions for the conservation of biological diversity and finally concluded that it could not ignore the likely effect of these requirements. In the Sierra Nevada, the Forest Service's treatment of controversies over resource conservation was influenced by situations similar to those that shaped national forest administration in other regions, including the Pacific Northwest.(9) Certain issues, such as the conservation of the habitat of the spotted owl, came to the fore in California later than in other regions, allowing administrators to benefit from the scientific and administrative experience gained in other venues. Forest Service officials struggled to respond constructively to changes in the interpretation of the agency's legal obligations. If the Forest Service had been slow to recognize the full extent of its legal responsibilities, it quickly began to change existing policies to comply with statutory and judicial requirements. In 1990, the Forest Service developed and embraced the concept of "ecosystem management" to meet the challenges of by environmental and ecological conservation. The Forest Service also embarked on a number of policy initiatives in California with the intention of avoiding the errors made by failing to respond effectively to public opposition and to administrative and legal appeals concerning its land and resource management plans for national forests in Washington, Oregon and northern coastal California. In this period, other administrative initiatives aimed at restructuring natural resource...