New Forest Service rules long overdue

Despite the alarmist claims of some environmental groups, the reforms to the forest planning process rolled out by the Forest Service recently are long-awaited and much-needed.

The Department of Agriculture has announced rule changes that will allow 15-year forest plans to be developed in 2-3 years, at far less cost than the current process, which generally takes 5-7 years.

The change is a centerpiece reform for Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth, who has long advocated reforms to eliminate the "analysis paralysis" that has often stymied the agency from taking necessary action.

Critics claim the changes will lead to some kind of environmental disaster, but we have long argued on these pages that the Forest Service's current approach to planning simply does not work. It is cumbersome and expensive, progressing at a pace so glacial that it actually discourages public involvement. It is so inflexible and unresponsive that a forest plan can be outdated the same year it is approved.

Example: The Flathead Forest Plan was implemented in 1986, and since then it has been amended 24 times, with each amendment requiring an expensive, time-consuming process.

The status quo was unacceptable. And the changes are aimed at providing a "more open, understandable and timely" planning process.

Critics, on the other hand, considered the current system to work just fine and see an ulterior motive.

"This is all about opening more and more forested lands to unsustainable logging with no regard for environmental impact," moaned Roger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife.

"Unsustainable?" "No regard?"

We flat-out disagree. Those kinds of comments seem thin and crusty, like they were pulled from a press release from the late 1980s.

Take a look around. On national forests across Montana, timber harvests are just a shadow of what they were during the booming 1980s. Indeed, forests are harvesting at levels far below the allowable sale quantities outlined in current forest plans. On the Flathead Forest, timber salvage is planned on less than 10 percent of huge areas burned by the fires of 2003. And fuel-reduction projects have been conservative, well-planned and directed at forested areas adjacent to private property.

There has been considerable regard for environmental impacts, not only from the Forest Service but also from loggers who have overhauled their operations in the last decade with Best Management Practices and better equipment that is lighter on the land.

We think there could be considerably more logging in Northwest Montana, and that it could be carried out in an environmentally responsible fashion. But we don't think the Forest Service will ever return to wholesale, commodity clearcutting.

The new planning regulations come with safeguards that will address one of the main components in the many lawsuits filed against the Forest Service - that the agency failed to actually implement standards in its forest plans.

The new rules will make use of "environmental management systems" aimed at monitoring the outcomes of forest management projects through regular audits. The goal is to ensure that forest managers are following their forest plans.

Agency officials say they will be able to respond more rapidly and more efficiently to changing conditions in the forest brought on by wildfires, insects and disease, and invasive plant species.

For those who advocate actual forest management and understandable forest planning, this is all desirable. What's questionable is the motives of those who prefer the agency's current unwieldy approach to forest planning.