Chainsaws, excavators and restoration

I spent two days last week at a “Place-Based Forest Agreements and Law Symposium” here in Missoula.  The Symposium was sponsored by the National Forest Foundation and the University of Montana’s Bolle Center for People and Forests.  It was a thought-provoking and interesting two days, with lots of good discussion about excellent collaborative efforts going on around the country.  

At the opening, one of the symposium conveners, Martin Nie, highlighted restoration as a commonality among these many place-based efforts.  Based on his analyses, restoration appears to be a topic over which diverse stakeholders can find common ground.  Wildlands CPR has certainly found the same thing in our experience.  The symposium focused in particular on commonalities and differences among two types of collaborative efforts –those that have sought legislation to enshrine their outcomes, and those that have worked within the existing administrative process to institute their outcomes.  The legislative approach, in particular, has become quite controversial, and numerous people attended who were concerned about this growing trend – especially as it relates to integrated wilderness/land management proposals.

So the discussion was varied, and the opinions were diverse.  I was encouraged to hear about the case studies, including the fact that most, if not all of the projects incorporate some components to mitigate or restore road impacts to the environment.  I was discouraged, however, that there was not a single case study where river/water system restoration was the primary purpose for the project.  Instead, nearly every project highlighted efforts to address forests/fuels/timber management issues.  As a result, though road issues were addressed, it appeared that they were subservient to timber/forest/fuels issues in the examples highlighted. 

Though not highlighted at this symposium, there is at least one collaborative restoration project that does prioritize watershed restoration: the Skokomish Watershed Action Team (SWAT) in Washington state.  One of the SWAT's two key focal points is, “fixing US Forest Service roads in the upper watershed.”  The SWAT meets all the criteria of case studies that were highlighted at the symposium, but their programmatic emphasis is different.  And while, of course, this one symposium couldn’t promote every collaborative out there, and they probably had their hands full picking which ones to include, it was disappointing that almost all the examples all had such similarities in terms of project scope.  

Though I don't think it happened on purpose, the outcome was a meeting focused on forest-based management.  As the old saying goes, if all you have is a hammer, then every problem is a nail.  In this instance, I’m concerned that if all the Forest Service thinks it has to implement restoration is a chainsaw, then every problem will be a tree.  This is already an issue for the Forest Service, but the symposium made me realize that the problem extends beyond the agency.  The conservation and forest restoration communities will perpetuate this misperception if we also focus so heavily on forest/fuels/timber management.  

Nearly a year ago, Agriculture Secretary Vilsack proposed a watershed restoration based vision for the future of the Forest Service.  While the Agency’s original mission included protecting and providing water, this has long been ignored, and at this point sounds almost like a new approach to doing business.  Basically Vilsack asked the Forest Service to think about new priorities and to move beyond timber.

However, nearly all steps the agency has since taken to begin implementing that vision have been focused on fuels/forest-based “restoration” activities.  Their proposed Integrated Resource Restoration program is one key example of this.  This is not to imply that the Forest Service isn’t doing great watershed work, because they are, but those projects just don’t get the same attention or funding as forest/fuels efforts.

I'm glad the Bolle Center and National Forest Foundation hosted this symposium, and that I attended and learned about many quality projects underway around the country.  But I'm also glad that there are other projects underway that are taking a different approach.  If we (the public) want the Forest Service to implement Vilsack’s vision effectively, and to step forward into the 21st century, we have to lead by example.  Since place-based collaboratives seem to be one of the popular forms of leading by example right now, let's start highlighing those folks who have gotten together to fix rivers, aquatic systems and watershed health, in addition to those who are working on forests and fuels.  The agency has a lot more at their disposal than just chainsaws – it’s time for the agency and local communities to start using some of those other tools to take a more comprehensive approach to restoration.