8/9/2019 The Forest Service's Fatal Flaw

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The Road-RIPorter, Summer Solstice 201014

DePaving the Way

The Forest Services Fatal Flaw?By Bethanie Walder

Oedipus Rex, Macbeth, Willy Lo-man, Tony Soprano, and theForest Service? A diverse group

with a common theme tragic or atalfaws. From ancient literature to mod-ern times, people have written about,read about and dissected the concepto the atal faw. High school and col-lege classes abound with papers about

tragic heroes, atal faws, and what canbe learned rom them. While its been along time since Ive taken such a class,and my metaphorical synapses are alittle rusty, it seems to me that the For-est Service may have a atal faw whenit comes to implementing their newrestoration vision: accountability.

One word may be too simplistic todescribe the whole problem whichis really an issue o inrastructure-de-ciency. Basically, the Forest Service hasno sta, program, or oce dedicated to

implementing restoration at either thepolicy or on-the-ground levels, yet theyhave adopted restoration as their newvision or the 21st Century. The problemis, you cant have a 21st Century visionwithout a commensurate inrastructureto enable you to implement that vision.To adapt a well known metaphor, i allthe Forest Service has is a chainsaw,then every restoration opportunitywill be a tree. The inrastructure andaccountability issue is deep-seated andemblematic o how hard it is or theForest Service to adapt to changingconditions both politically and on-the-ground.

To get a sense o whether this re-ally is a tragic faw, here are a ew quickinternet denitions o the concept (em-phasis added in all denitions below):

A tragic faw is a literary term that reers to a personality trait o a main char-acter that leads to his or her downall. In other words, a character with a tragic awis in need of some kind of attitude adjustment. http://www.clisnotes.com/Section/What-is-a-tragic-faw-.id-305408,articleId-8035.html#ixzz0pY1GMVJi

The tragic hero is a longstanding literary concept, a character with a FatalFlaw like Pride who is doomed to fail in search of their Tragic Dream despite theirbest efforts or good intentions.http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TragicHero.

While many people within the agency really do have the best o intentionswhen it comes to restoration, I am concerned that the Forest Service, without an

attitude adjustment, is doomed to ail.

For more than a century, the Forest Service has operated largely as a providero natural resources like timber, oil, gas, grazing, and even recreation. But supply-ing timber is what the agency is most known or. Theyve created an inrastructurethat enables them to do this though environmental accountability has long beena problem. In 2009, however, US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack outlined a newvision or the Forest Service: restoration. While creative agency sta have beenimplementing restoration projects or years, Vilsack dened a new guiding restora-tion vision with an emphasis on clean water.

Unfortunately, the lack of accountability has a ripple effect on Forest Service efforts torestore public lands. Photo by Dan Funsch.

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/Section/What-is-a-tragic-flaw-.id-305408,articleId-8035.html#ixzz0pY1GMVJihttp://www.cliffsnotes.com/Section/What-is-a-tragic-flaw-.id-305408,articleId-8035.html#ixzz0pY1GMVJihttp://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TragicHerohttp://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TragicHerohttp://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TragicHerohttp://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TragicHerohttp://www.cliffsnotes.com/Section/What-is-a-tragic-flaw-.id-305408,articleId-8035.html#ixzz0pY1GMVJihttp://www.cliffsnotes.com/Section/What-is-a-tragic-flaw-.id-305408,articleId-8035.html#ixzz0pY1GMVJi

8/9/2019 The Forest Service's Fatal Flaw

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The Road-RIPorter, Summer Solstice 2010 15

The new vision however, still encompasses plenty o resource extraction.The agencys proposed Fiscal Year 2011 budget combines three major budgetaryprograms (timber, sheries and wildlie, vegetation and watersheds) into one largepool to promote and hasten restoration activities on national orests. The pro-posed Integrated Resource Restoration Program or IRR (seeRIPorter15:1) wouldunnel nearly $700 million into a single unding bucket or restoration. The resultis likely to be that every new timber sale will be a restoration sale. Again, i all

you have is a chainsaw, then every problem is most certainly a tree. Accountabil-ity or how this unding would be spent, and whether or not it would result in realwatershed restoration on-the-ground, is nowhere to be ound. Similarly, the budgethas no recommendations or the type o inrastructure changes (as opposed tosimply changing unding mechanisms) that would enable them to implement such aprogram eectively and with accountability.

But this lack o accountability and capacity is not solely related to the IRR. Theagency as a whole does NOT currently have the inrastructure needed to implementa robust, comprehensive, eective and viable restoration eort, yet they are askingor an enormous pot o unding to be dedicated to restoration. Their tragic faw,thereore, may be their ailure to create a new inrastructure to develop, promote,direct and implement their watershed restoration plans. While only the ForestService can determine the exact inrastructure needed, we have some preliminary

recommendations. For example, we think they should develop a national Water-shed Restoration Program, led by a national Director o Watershed Restoration,with regional Restoration Directors, and we have proposed this to the agency.These sta should be trained in hydrology and/or aquatic/sheries ecology, andthey should be tasked with developing and implementing clear, science-based,ecoregion-specic restoration agendasor the agency that put resource needsover economic returns.

Lest this seem somewhat trivial,heres a rst-hand example o whyWildlands CPR thinks it so importantor the Forest Service to create a properstructure to achieve their vision. Theagency has received $180 million overthe last three years to implement Legacy Roads and Trails specically to restoreand protect clean drinking water and other aquatic and sheries resources im-pacted by roads. Many sheries, hydrology, and soils sta weve spoken with lovethis initiative, and it provides an incredible opportunity to move towards Vilsacksvision. But because o their inrastructure, Legacy Roads and Trails, a potentiallybrilliant watershed restoration eort, is largely run by engineers. Thats not bad inand o itsel (there are some enlightened engineers working on it), but quite rankly,most engineers love roads and have been trained to construct things. Few peoplelike to remove their creations, yet road reclamation is a key purpose o LegacyRoads and Trails.

Initially, not recognizing their tragic faw, we pushed the agency both to imple-ment Legacy Roads and Trails immediately based on pressing needs, and to under-take a long-overdue national analysis o their road system to determine which roadsthey still need, and which they can reclaim or close. Way back in 2001, the ForestService adopted a long-term roads policy that provided guidance or identiying asmaller, more aordable, and less ecologically damaging minimum road systemthat would meet recreational and resource management needs. Their 2001 policyenvisioned the reclamation o 80-120,000 miles o system roads. To date, they havelargely ailed to identiy that minimum system, even though doing so would providethe blueprint or how to spend Legacy Roads and Trails money.

But engineers are basically in charge o Legacy Roads and Trails, and thus incharge o implementing the minimum roads system, albeit with help rom rec-reation and watershed sta. In March I asked some o the lead engineers in DC

about their plans or this minimumroad system. I was dismayed, butnot surprised, to learn that they onlythought they would have to get rid oabout 25,000 miles to achieve it. Thisrefects the tragic faw. When I askedthe Chie about this and how to provide

the accountability needed to ensurethat a truly ecologically and scallysustainable minimum road system isidentied, he said that it wouldnt justbe the responsibility o the engineers,they would engage other departments.But how? And who has nal authority?Where does the buck stop? Why isntthere someone, a national WatershedRestoration Director or example, whois responsible or ensuring that the naldecisions are appropriately balanced?

And this is only or identiying a

minimum road system. What happenswhen you scale that up to $700 milliona year or more with the proposed IRR?With no watershed restoration program,no Director o Restoration, and no ac-

Odes to Roads, continued from page 12

The agency does not have the infrastructure

needed to implement a robust, comprehensive,

effective and viable restoration effort

countability, it seems impossible or theagency to implement a new restorationvision eectively, or even at all. Unless,that is, they get an attitude adjustment or as the case may be, an inrastructureadjustment.

Without a new watershed res-toration program, the IRR, LegacyRoads and Trails, and any other newrestoration eorts are likely to bemere variations on an old theme, asthe old resource extraction mentalityand structure o the agency butts up

against their theoretical 21st Centuryvision. But it doesnt have to be thatway. The agency can make an attitudeadjustment, they can create the neces-sary inrastructure and accountability,and they can implement the restorationvision that Secretary Vilsack and othershave laid out. In typical tragedies, thehero is incapable o overcoming theirfaw, and thus they ail. But this isnt astory, its real lie, and it doesnt have tobe a tragedy.