Missoulian - Experts say Forest Service facing tough future

In Jack Ward Thomas' eye, his beloved Forest Service is like an abused pony - cross hobbled, blindfolded, spurred on one side, reins yanked hard on the other.

It just doesn't know which way to turn.

That's a far cry from its storied past when the first rangers provided a stewardship role to the thousands of acres set aside for the public good. When World War II ended, the agency stepped forward to help provide the timber necessary to house the hordes of returning servicemen.

All along, Congress passed new laws to guide the agency's management efforts. That well-meaning effort has created a morass that Thomas believes has put the future of the agency in doubt.

Thomas, a former Forest Service chief, said the agency no longer has a clear mission and the ramifications of that lack of direction could be dire.

On Wednesday, Thomas joined Mark Rey, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's undersecretary for natural resources and conservation, and others to discuss the hurdles the Forest Service will face during its second century at a conference at the University of Montana.

UM's O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West sponsored the conference entitled “Challenges Facing the U.S. Forest Service: A Critical Review,” with support from the Cinnabar Foundation.

A confusing mix of environmental laws coupled with “environmental warriors” willing to take the agency to task has impacted the agency's ability to actively manage national forest lands, Thomas said.

That's resulted in smaller work forces and shrinking budgets, which in turn makes it more difficult to get work on the ground accomplished, he said.

“When do the environmental warriors take responsibility for the consequences of their victory?” asked Thomas.

The major battles have been fought, swords are being turned into plowshares, although Thomas said some groups continue to “bayonet the wounded Š some groups have gone too far and are rapidly losing public support.”

Things are changing and people are beginning to find common ground, said Maggie Pittman, the Lolo National Forest's Missoula district ranger.

“On the local level, it is a new day,” Pittman said. “In Missoula, Montana, we're working collaboratively with a lot of different groups. Both sides are looking for ways to find middle ground.

“We're not at the same place we were 10 years ago,” she said.

That thought was echoed by another conference presenter, Mitch Friedman, executive director of Conservation Northwest.

Friedman, who claims to have been amongst the first tree sitters, said Conservation Northwest used to be in forefront in filing appeals and lawsuits against proposed Forest Service actions. These days, you might find Friedman sitting across the table from old adversaries searching for common ground.

“Once you get past the old culture wars, there are lots of new opportunities out there,” Friedman said.

Friedman has seen it work in places like the Colville National Forest in Washington, where diverse interests crafted an agreement that restored fire dependent forests, provided timber to local mills and added thousands of acres of lands protected forever as wilderness.

To get there, Friedman said there has to be willingness to compromise on all sides.

“We've realized that you can't just bless the perfect sale,” he said. “You have to understand that sometimes it's just going to have to be good enough Š the bottom line changes for that larger purpose.”

Rey said the administration is looking for ways to encourage public and private cooperation in managing public resources. That kind of cooperation is especially important now when budgets for most domestic programs are likely to remain flat or decrease slightly.

The agency is looking for ways to stretch its limited funding.

For instance, Rey pointed to better bookkeeping that not only produced a first-ever clean audit for the department in 2002, but also created a $60 million savings for the Forest Service that could be plowed back into resource management on the ground level.

Budgeting isn't predicted to get any easier.

An agency priority is fuel reduction work, which isn't doesn't come cheap.

Rey said the average cost ranges from $100 to $3,000 per acre, Rey said.

The agency has prioritized about 80 million acres at risk for severe fire. So far, about 24.6 million acres of federal lands have been treated over the last six years, which is an area slightly larger than the state of Ohio, he said.

“We should be treating about 8 million acres a year,” he said. “That's about twice what we're treating right now. We still have a lot of progress to make.”

At the same time, firefighting costs for the agency are skyrocketing as more people build in the wildland-urban interface.

Between 1980 and 1999, about 8.4 million new homes were built in the interface, Considering an average of 4 people per household, Rey said that's like taking the entire population of California and sprinkling them across a fire dependent ecosystem.

That's driving up the costs of fighting wildfire.

In 1990, fire suppression cost accounted for about 17 percent of the Forest Service's overall budget. By 2008, Rey said it will be closer to 45 percent.

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