psw: the contributions of research

R5/PSW Centennial Forum 1

PSW: The contributions of research


Outline:

The history of the USDA Forest Service management philosophy and the evolution of research

• Issues, trends and paradigms

• Implications for research

• Science for the time (handout paper only)


Historical Trends:

• Increasing population results in increasing demands on a limited land and natural resource base

• Increasing urbanization of the population with a resulting shift in political power

• Changing demographics (older and more culturally and ethnically diverse population) creates new demands

• More leisure time and increasing access brings new recreational demands at opposite ends of the spectrum

• Changing public values and preferences regarding the use of public resources increases conflicts

• Changing management paradigms and time lags in agency response to shifts in values create public distrust


1880-1950’s Scientific management of American society

The core idea of Progressivism was that science was regarded as the method of understanding and controlling changes and great faith was placed in science and technology as the engine of progress.

o Gifford Pinchot and Teddy Roosevelt were leaders in the “Progressive Movement.”

U.S. population grows from 75,995,000 in 1900 to 150,697,000 in 1950; California grows from 1,485,000 to 10,586,000.

U. S. and California Population Growth, 1900-1950

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The early mandates:In 1897, the Organic Administration Act provided specific purposes for establishing the forest reserves (USDA Forest Service 1993): “No national forest shall be established, except to improve and protect the forest within the boundaries, or for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens of the United States; but it is not the purpose or intent of these provisions, or of the Act, to authorize the inclusion therein of lands more valuable for the mineral therein, or for agricultural purposes, than for forest purposes.”


Direction for administering these lands was provided in a letter sent to the Chief of the Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot, by Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson on February 1, 1905 (USDA Forest Service 1993) (reflecting a Progressive and utilitarian view):

“In the administration of the forest reserves it must be clearly borne in mind that all land is to be devoted to its most productive use for the permanent good of the whole people and not for the temporary benefit of individuals or companies. All the resources of forest reserves are for use, and this use must be brought about in a thoroughly prompt and businesslike manner, under such restrictions only as will insure the permanence of these resources.


You will see to it that the water, wood, and forage of the reserves are conserved and wisely used for the benefit of the home-builder first of all; upon whom depends the best permanent use of the lands and resources alike. The continued prosperity of the agricultural, lumbering, mining, and livestock interests is directly dependent upon a permanent and accessible supply of water, wood, and forage, as well as upon the present and future use of these resources under businesslike regulations, enforced with promptness, effectiveness and common sense.


In the management of each reserve local questions will be decided upon local grounds; the dominant industry will be considered first, but with as little restriction to minor industries as may be possible; sudden changes in industrial conditions will be avoided by gradual adjustment after due notice; and where conflicting interests must be reconciled, the question will always be decided from the standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run [emphasis added]. “


Stewardship or custodial management

Post WW II housing boom economic expansion

Forest planning and buy backs

Spotted owls and EM


• Gifford Pinchot found it necessary to establish a Section of Special Investigations (Research) during his first year(1898) as Chief of the Division of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture.

• By 1902, it became an agency division headed by Raphael Zon with 55 employees and accounting for one-third of the agency budget ($185,000). Zon proposed creation of forest experiment stations to decentralize research.

From: West, Terry. 1992. Centennial mini-histories of the Forest Service. FS-518, Washington, DC. USDA Forest Service


• The first experiment station was established in 1908 in Fort Valley on the Arizona’s Territory’s Coconino National Forest, near Flagstaff to investigate the reasons for natural regeneration failure in the ponderosa pine forests of the southwest.

•The early experiment stations were low key operations designed to serve the needs of the local forest. However, this could eventually lead to a situation where research would be in a position of supporting management decisions.

• In 1909, Carlos Bates established the first controlled experiments on forest-streamflow relations near the Rio Grande National Forest in Colorado. Bates’ research showed how water moves through soil to sustain stream flow during rainless periods.


• Range research began in the USDA Department of Botany between 1868 and 1901; later is was conducted in the Division of Agrostology. In 1897, Frederick Coville of the Division of Forestry carried out the first investigation of the impact of grazing on the forest reserves of the Oregon Cascades. His report, published in 1898 resulted in Oregon’s forest reserves being reopened for grazing.


• In 1915, the importance of research was formalized by creation of a Branch of Research in the Forester’s Office (Washington, DC) with Earle Clapp in charge. This made Research co-equal to the administrative side of the agency. The original purpose of research was to the obtain data necessary to manage the national forests. This included study of hundreds of tree species and exploration of methods to reseed and plant forests. This was the beginning of an independent research organization. The independence of research has been reinforced over time.


• In 1907, James Jardine and Arthur Sampson conducted studies on the grazing capacity of the Wallowa National Forest in Oregon, but most early range research was conducted on the Great Basin Experiment Station on Utah’s Manti National Forest.

• Because fires in European forests were not the threat that they were in U.S. forests, an early need for research was created by the failure of European management models to work in U.S. forests.

o Forest Service Chief Greeley wrote: “firefighting is a matter of scientific management just as much as silviculture or range improvement.”

o California District Forester Coert DuBois directed tests of light burning and fire planning and in 1914 published “Systematic Fire Protection in California.”


• In 1928, the McSweeney-McNary Act recognized the experiment stations and authorized broad-scale forest research and provided funding.

• In 1926, the California Forest Experiment Station was established.

• By 1935, there were 48 experimental forests and ranges.

• James G. Eddy deeded the Eddy Tree Breeding Station in Placerville, California, to the Government in 1935. Inspired by the work of Luther Burbank, Eddy started the station in 1925. Today, it is part of the Pacific Southwest Station.


Implications for the research agenda:

• Basic information on the characteristics of forest tree species--especially their growth, regeneration, and distribution-- was needed.


Research focus in the Progressive Era:• Basic biology of commercial forest species, including growth habits, cone and seed development, regeneration requirements, wind firmness, and insects and diseases that affected survival and growth.• The first vegetation map of California was produced.• Focus on individual species initially, then on forest stands.• Toward the end of this period, research emerged on forest succession (changes in forest communities in one place over time) and the birth of modern wildlife biology and management concepts from Aldo Leopold and others.


Stages in the Progressive Movement: 1960-1980’s Economic progressivism

o The 1960’s saw the beginning of the loss of public confidence in institutions, professions, and trust in science to solve the world’s problems. The ending of material scarcity in the U.S. did not lead to happiness and emotional well-being promised by progressivism. The social legitimacy of government actions would no longer be determined by a claim to scientific truth.o What now was important was to bring involved parties together, to let them bargain among themselves, and to reach common agreement. The presence of the affected interests at the table and the ability to agree—rather than the substance of the agreement—now became the decisive point.


oThis era is characterized by passage of MYSA, Wilderness Act, FOIA, NEPA, ESA, and NFMA


o The response of some of the old line progressives was to argue that the failure of the old paradigm was that it was focused on production efficiency rather than economic efficiency. According to this view, the only objective criterion for deciding among the many possible uses of the national forests was to choose that combination that acted to maximize the total value of all forest uses together.

U.S. population grows from 179,323,000 in 1960 to 226,546,000 in 1980; California grows from 15,717,000 to 23,668,000.

U.S. and California Population Growth, 1960-1980

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1960-1975: The mandates change

1960’s

• Multiple Use–Sustained Yield Act (1960) supplemented the purposes for establishing the national forests found in the Organic Act of 1897. MUSY states that “it is the policy of the Congress that the national forests are established and shall be administered for outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, and wildlife and fish purposes.”

• Wilderness Act (1964)


1970’s (The “Decade of Change”-Dennis LeMaster)• The National Environmental Policy Act of 1970

• Endangered Species Act of 1973

• The Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA) of 1974

• The National Forest Management Act of 1976

• Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Research Act of 1978

• Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act of 1978



• Other disciplines are needed to provide the knowledge needed for multiple-use management. This period sees a rise in social and economics research

• With increasing demands for timber from the national forests following World War II, the national forests turn to more intensive management techniques to increase productivity. This results in the need for more research on genetic improvement, production of nursery stock, control of competing vegetation.

• Multiple-use optimizing models and other planning tools are needed to support national forest planning.


Research focus in the Era of Economic Progressivism :• Emergence of econometric models to find economically optimum forest management regimes (RAM, FORPLAN and others).• The need for interdisciplinary research is apparent but the scientific community, in general, is slow to respond.• The wildlife biological sciences mature and begin to play a more important role in natural resource management. • Social scientists are added to the research disciplines of the Forest Service as recreation begins to emerge as a major use of public lands and forest planning requires the consideration of social impacts.• Development of fire management and fire economic models.• Slope stability research.


Stages in the Progressive Movement:

1990- ? Ecosystem management• Economic efficiency clashed with a growing public sentiment against what was felt to be an assault against nature and natural systems.• Robert Nelson postulates that ecosystem management is the new progressivism. Ecological management would put scientific management at the service of the new environmental values. But what if a basic hostility to scientific management lay at the core of much environmental thinking? What if many environmental thinkers found objectionable the very idea of manipulating nature through scientific knowledge for human benefit?


• The U.S. population continues to become more culturally and ethnically diverse. People live and stay active longer. The Baby Boomers are reaching retirement age.

• The population continues to become more urban/suburban with important shifts in political power from rural to urban/suburban areas.

• A series of severe wildfire seasons increases public awareness of the problem of wildfires and forest fuels, especially in the urban/wildland interface.

• Problems with continued range-wide viability of animal species focuses attention on the need for landscape level planning and action.


The Death of Progressivism?

1995-present The Age of Wicked Problems

Wicked problems are characterized by:• Definition of the problem or issue is in the “eye of the beholder.”• There is no single correct formulation for a wicked problem, only more or less useful ones.• Solutions are generally good or bad, rather than true or false.• Each wicked problem concerns an assemblage of resources combined with effective demands in ways that are unique.• Any solution developed is likely to be a “one-shot” operation.• We cannot know when all possible solutions have been explored.


• The decisionmaker cannot be wrong and must make a decision.

U. S. population grows from 248,710,000 in 1990 to 281,224,000 in 2000; California grows from 29,760,000 to 34,010,000.



• Need for research and methodology on identifying and understanding stakeholder values and preferences.

• Need for quantifying and communicating risk and uncertainty.

• Need for spatially-based, ecosystem planning models.

• Need to integrate values and preferences into the planning models.

• Need to understand the effects of demographic change on natural resource use and preferences.


• Risk characterization and communication and measurement of uncertainty are now very important

• New ways of bringing adaptive management and participatory processes together are needed.

• Issues cross ecological, disciplinary and political boundaries.

• The more we know, the less we understand


Research focus in the Era of Wicked Problems:

• Interdisciplinary research

• Risk assessment and risk communication

• Understanding uncertainty

• Understanding and modeling public values and preferences

• Interfacing adaptive ecosystem and adaptive participatory process management

• Landscape level studies

• Development of ecosystem models


Implications for management:• Decisions must be “open” and transparent (decision is reached through consensus)• Agency needs to deal with tenure of decisionmakers to build relationships.

• Adaptive management must apply to the public participation process as well as the monitoring and scientific inquiry processes.• The planning process is designed to build “learning networks” where incremental decisions are made that are ecologically sound and implementable, that have public support with the goal of learning from them together.• Negotiation skills become more important.• Technology must be used to better engage the “communities of interest.”

psw: the contributions of research

Documents

forest purposes

national forest

increasing demands

increasing population

diverse population

california population

management paradigms

new demands