 * Critical Finding NEW FORCES FOR CHANGE * The Feather River Coordinated Resource Management (CRM) Group * Coalition for Unified Recreation in the Eastern Sierra
CURRENT PAGE: 
 
|
|
New Forces for Change The traditional (progressive and technocratic) models for public administration have not responded adequately to the range of ecological, social, political, and economic aspects of resource management. The primary reason for this failure to respond seems to be the dominance of centralized policy and administration. Individuals and public and private interests are frustrated by these failures and have developed pragmatic solutions to centralized institutional failures. Observation of incipient efforts indicates a move away from centralized administration of policy and its implementation, with a cautious nod to local and regional collaborative strategies. The following section briefly discusses several examples, illustrating both the promise of these approaches and the problems facing resource management and conservation agencies. Attempts at Interagency Collaboration Fire Protection Interagency collaboration for fire fighting in California and other western states has grown steadily since the early 1970s, when severe fires in southern California led the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF), the U.S. Forest Service, and other fire control agencies to discuss formal cooperation. The aim was to more effectively marshal forces to fight severe wildfires, thereby reducing losses to private property owners and to the public. Project Firescope brought together agencies with fire protection responsibilities in southern California and included fire research, development, and application funded by the Forest Service. It required collaboration among cities, counties, the state, and federal agencies. The project vastly improved the coordinated response of multiple agencies to wildfires. Several mutual aid agreements were concluded to further the idea of interagency cooperation. Agencies now automatically respond to wildfires as parts of a larger integrated force. Exchange of personnel and equipment from one agency to another, for example, is standard procedure, as is reimbursement from one agency to another for service and assistance rendered. As a result, there is now a relatively well coordinated multiagency fire protection system to control severe wildfires. This model has spread worldwide as an effective way to integrate emergency response. The agencies could undertake cooperation of this kind for implementation of ecologically sensitive resource management as well, but they have not. Interagency initiatives to promote fuels management, for example, have been extremely limited. Where cooperation has occurred, it has tended to focus on assistance to private landowners. Scant federal-state collaboration has occurred regarding either federal or state land. Interagency fire protection appears to be a special case. As a result of a nearly universal perception that fighting fire had paramount importance, institutions were able to make enormous innovations quickly and to collobarate successfully. The example set by fire-fighting agencies demonstrates, however, that a cooperative approach can be successful. Protecting Forest Values on Private Lands Driven largely by interagency controversy, California state agencies have developed a reasonably effective approach for ensuring sustained management of privately held forests. Although the authority to regulate various environmental goods produced on forest lands is distributed among several state and federal agencies, these agencies have attempted over the years to coordinate their enforcement programs through the states administration of the California Forest Practices Program. Forest practices on private and state lands in the Sierra and throughout California are administered under the California Forest Practices Act of 1973. Under this law, the California State Board of Forestry adopted rules and regulations that implement the intent of the act and other state and federal laws. To gain the approval of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF), landowners are required to submit a timber harvesting plan specifying the harvesting and reforestation activities they expect to pursue. Provisions to protect soil and land productivity, water quality, wildlife habitat, endangered species, historical and archaeological sites, and aesthetics are included in the harvesting plan. The timber harvest planning review process was originally deemed to be independent of the California Environmental Quality Act. However as a result of a 1970s lawsuit, the review process was brought under the states far-reaching environmental quality program. Subsequent executive, leg-islative, and administrative action made the review process a certified program. As such, the fundamental principles and requirements of state environmental law are administered through the CDF-led program. Foremost are the requirements that the potential environmental impacts of timber management be disclosed and that all feasible mitigations be applied to reduce or avoid significant adverse effects. Where adverse effects cannot be avoided, a statement of overriding concerns must be provided. When critical wildlife, plant, or habitat resources are thought to occur on a timber management site, consultation is required between the individual or entity submitting the plans and the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG). In the case of federally listed species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also can become involved in plan review. Required consultation consists of a review by a CDFG biologist of species locations and potential project hazards. The biologist can consult with species experts and the project proponent to develop project mitigations and alternatives. The CDFG must then issue findings and permits as necessary to protect a species or habitat area. No project can be approved that would jeopardize a species. Water quality protection also is handled through the timber planning review process. Negotiations between the Board of Forestry and the State Water Resources Control Board began in 1977 to identify nonpoint pollution sources related to silviculture on private forest lands and to determine whether the Board of Forestrys forest practice rules met the standards of protection required under federal and state water quality laws. After years of negotiation, the Board rules are provisionally certified as being in compliance with the federal Clean Water Act. Environmental and landowner groups, and the general public, regularly express concern about the effectiveness of the private forest regulatory program. In a review of the application of best management practices, adequacy of protection could not be fully evaluated because practices were not applied in many cases. Nevertheless, the state has managed to construct a coordinated approach for addressing sustainable management of its private forests in a way that helps to minimize administrative and compliance costs and to reinforce the view that forest lands produce important environmental and social values beyond timber. 
 
|