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Implementation

Rest of term• November 4 –Implementation – • November 5 – policy analysis quiz on Connect by midnight• November 6 – Implementation, last tutorial• November 11 – Remembrance Day no class November 13 – forest carbon 1 Brief due

• November 17 (Monday evening) – ABT simulation• November 18 no class• November 18 (evening) – carbon simulation• November 20 – Lecture - comparative• November 25 – conclusion 1• November 27 – conclusion 2• December 3 – 3:30-5:30 final exam

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Today’s (and Thursday’s) Agenda

• Implementation – overview

• Importance of detail

• Conditions for success

• GBR EBM case

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Andrew S. Wrighthttp://www.cold-coast.com/

Policy Cycle Model

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Agenda-Setting

Policy Formulation

Decisionmaking

Policy Implementation

Monitoring and Evaluation

Implementation - overcoming hurdles

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVNDBluxIv8 At 0:50

Readings this week

November 4, 6 • David Weimer and Aidan Vining, Policy

Analysis: Concepts and Practice, pp. 274-280. (reading packet)

• Karen Price, Audrey Roburn, Andy MacKinnon, “Ecosystem-based management in the Great Bear Rainforest,” Forest Ecology and Management 258 (2009)

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This week’s themes

• There is a tension between factors for success in decision-making (agreement) and implementation (clarity and specificity).

• The meaning is in the detail: it is impossible to understand how policy affects the distribution of values without understanding the details of policy design and implementation.

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Implementation - Overview

• begins after adoption, continues until termination

• policies not self-executing– EBM in GBR below

• policies transformed as they are implemented– Clayoquot Sound Land Use Decision

• implementation as a series of adoptions

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Policy alternation through implementation – (Hoberg 1996 chapter excerpt)

Clayoquot Sound Land Use Decision – 1993

One-third of contested area set aside as protected

Unleashed widespread protests– 800 arrests

NDP Government Response Negotiate IMA with First Nations

Appoint Clayoquot Sound Scientific Panel for Sustainable Forestry Practices

Results: Co-management board

Logging standards much stricter then Code

Dramatic drop in timber harvest

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Land use plan remained in tact, but relevant policy changed fundamentally

The importance of detail

• Policy is about the use of government authority in the pursuit of multiple and usually conflicting societal values

• To understand the impact on values, you must understand the details of policy and its implementation

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Success Factors(adapted from Weimer and Vining)

• clear and consistent objectives

• reasonable theory– policy a chain of hypotheses

• appropriate assembly process– who controls relevant

elements: implementing officials, target groups

– What are their motivations?

– What resources available to get compliance

• skillful and committed people– fixers

• political support

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Today’s Agenda

• D-M Conclusion• Implementation –

overview• Importance of detail• Conditions for

success• GBR EBM case

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Today’s Agenda

• D-M Conclusion• Implementation –

overview• Importance of detail• Conditions for

success• GBR EBM case

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land base of 6.4 million ha (16 million acres)

EBM – Conflicting interpretations

• “… an adaptive approach to managing human activities that seeks to ensure the coexistence of healthy, fully functioning ecosystems and human communities.

Coast Information Team, EBM Framework

• “The focus of resource development within these areas is to apply a new innovative Ecosystem Based Management approach that will enhance community stability, encourage economic diversification and increase local employment, economic development and other benefits from resources.” backgrounder to February, 2006 announcement

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Concept: Range of Natural Variability (RONV)

• “The range of dynamic change in natural systems over historic time periods (~ 500 years before present)” (glossary)

• “used as a benchmark to assess the degree of past change and to guide future management” (glossary)

• Original EBM: management should reflect patterns of natural disturbance in the particular ecological system in question.

• In this region: RONV for old growth ~90%

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Getting Agreement vs. Guiding Implementation

• “constructive ambiguity” of EBM facilitated agreement

• Frustrated implementation– Postponed conflict resolution

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Uncertainty over EBM Standardsold growth representation: 30% vs. 70%

• 2006: Parties commit to full implementation of EBM by March 2009

• Definition of EBM uncertain

• Coast Information Team, environmentalists say 70%

• LRMPs, industry, government – and existing policy said 30%

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Coast Information TeamEBM Planning Handbook 2004

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Coast Information TeamEBM Planning Handbook

• Seral stage: Any stage of development of an ecosystem from a disturbed, unvegetated state to a climax plant community. It defines the structural attributes and age of a plant community.

• Old seral = old growth• In this ecosystem, >250 years old

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LRMPs -2004

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p. 21 of Central Coast LRMP http://archive.ilmb.gov.bc.ca/slrp/lrmp/nanaimo/cencoast/docs/table_rec/final_report_may20_04.pdf

LRMPs

• The common and very common group are 98% of the area – the “coastal western hemlock” that enviros cherish

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March 2009 Decision

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March 2009 Decision

• “Low-impact logging regulations that will conserve 50 per cent of the natural range of old growth forests.”

• Merely in the preamble, non-binding

• Default targets specified in complex table

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70% RONV by 2012?

March 2009 Decision (cont)• Section 14.6 of order• Default target needs to be attained unless

1. Does not fall below 30% of RONV

2. Information sharing and consultation with First Nations

3. A landscape unit habitat assessment for species at risk and regionally important wildlife is completed by a qualified professional

4. Old forest is retained to provide sufficient habitat to sustain species at risk and regionally important wildlife, based on the above assessment

5. An adaptive management plan is developed and implemented to the extent practicable

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March 2009 Decision (cont)• Section 14.6 of order• Default target needs to be attained unless

1. Does not fall below 30% of RONV

2. Information sharing and consultation with First Nations [already required]

3. A landscape unit habitat assessment for species at risk and regionally important wildlife is completed by a qualified professional [already required]

4. Old forest is retained to provide sufficient habitat to sustain species at risk and regionally important wildlife, based on the above assessment [already required]

5. An adaptive management plan is developed and implemented to the extent practicable [weasel words]

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Distilled evolution of EBM old growth retention standards

• CIT recommended 70% at landscape level (2004)• LRMP recommended 30% for virtually all (2004)• 2006 policy adopted LRMP as “interim target”

pledged full implementation by 2009• 2009 50% region-wide target, but fine print in

rules shows it is more like 30%– New commitment for full implementation by 2014

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Success Factors(adapted from Weimer and Vining)

• clear and consistent objectives

• reasonable theory– policy a chain of hypotheses

• appropriate assembly process– who controls relevant

elements: implementing officials, target groups

– What are their motivations?

– What resources available to get compliance

• skillful and committed people– fixers

• political support

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Success Factors vs Price et al on EBM

Weimer and Vining• clear and consistent

objectives• reasonable theory• appropriate assembly

process• skillful and committed

people• political support

PRICE ET AL P. 7• Immense inertia – easy to

fall back on status quo thinking– e.g., reliance on timber supply

for HWB

• Lack of data– Socio-cultural– Ecosystem inventory– Causal knowledge

• Political commitment to making tradeoffs

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Clear and consistent objectives

• Objectives were vague and in conflict

• Theme: There is a tension between factor for success in decision-making (agreement) and implementation (clarity and specificity)

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Reasonable theory – Price et al: EBM in the GBR

• Abundant evidence supports the existence of habitat thresholds, but there is no consensus on how much habitat is required to avoid thresholds, beyond an agreement that amount will vary among organisms and across ecosystems. Several authors have suggested using habitat thresholds relevant to the most sensitive regionally occurring species to set targets.

• In the Great Bear Rainforest however, no research into habitat thresholds had been conducted. Faced with little regionally specific information, independent advisors searched for an alternative approach suited for precautionary guidance. The solution was to review studies on thresholds where loss of suitable habitat in any landscape was shown to affect a population or community

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Current Statusbest update here

• January 2014 – enviros, industry, agree to ~ 70%– First Nations have yet to agree

• Outstanding issues– Skills training – Carbon offset credits– Share of (limited) logging– Rollback coastal ferry cuts– End to grizzly bear hunt

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Conclusion – Implementation themes

• There is a tension between factor for success in decision-making (agreement) and implementation (clarity and specificity)

• The meaning is in the detail: it is impossible to understand how policy affects the distribution of values without understanding the details of policy design and implementation

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Next week

• Forest carbon

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