New Directions In Management · Principal Investigator, Forest Biometrics, St. Regis, Montana New...

New Directions

In Management

Of Forest Landscapes

Patrick Moore.._ James D. Arney.._ Jonathan B. Haufler

The Plum Creek Lectures 2000 Jennifer O'Loughlin, Editor

School of Forestry The University of Montana-Missoula "World Class in the Rockies"

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School of Forestry The University of Montana-Missoula

The School of Forestry at The University

of Montana-Missoula is a comprehensive

natural resource education and research in

stitution offering Bachelor's, Master's and

Doctoral programs in forest and range re

source management, wildlife biology, natu

ral resource recreation, and natural re

source conservation. The School's Montana

Forest and Conservation Experiment Sta

tion, institutes, and centers administer its

research and outreach programs.

Comprehensive information about the

School and its programs is available at our

web site: http://www.forestryumt.edu

©2001

School of Forestry The University of Montana-Missoula

Partnerships in Forestry Research and Education The University of Montana School of Forestry has developed productive

partnerships in research and education with the forestry industry, conservation organizations, and public agencies. This lecture series and the associated Plum Creek Fellowship are the product of such a partnership.

The Plum Creek Fellowship The Plum Creek Fellowship provides a 12-month stipend and tuition for a

doctoral candidate in the School of Forestry at The University of MontanaMissoula. A gift from the Plum Creek Timber Company established the UM Foundation endowment which supports the Fellowship.

The Fellow assists the Plum Creek Lecture Committee in developing and hosting the Plum Creek Lectures.

Plum Creek Timber Company Plum Creek Timber Company, the largest private forest landowner in

Montana (1.5 million acres), strives to manage its lands according to environmental principles based on sound science, and to balance economic returns with protection for the environment.

The company views support for the UM School of Forestry as a sound investment. The School's research develops science-based solutions to forest management challenges, and the School's graduates provide the forest products industry with the trained professionals it needs to maintain productive, healthy forests.

Plum Creek is committed to supporting sound scientific forestry education, and to ~eveloping strong partnerships with the communities in which it operates.

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Acknowledgments A gift from the Plum Creek Timber Company, managed as an endowment in The University of Montana

Foundation, funded these lectures and the associated Plum Creek Doctoral Fellowship.

2000 Lecture Series Speakers Patrick Moore,, Greenspirit, Vancouver, British Columbia James D. Arney, Forest Biometrics, St. Regis, Montana

Jonathan B. Haufler, Ecosystem Management Research Institute, Seeley Lake, Montana

2000 Plum Creek Lecture Committee School of Forestry:

Donald Bedunah, Chair, Professor, Range Resource Management

David Jackson, Professor, Resource Economics and Policy

Tara Barrett, Assistant Professor, Integrated Resources Planning

Robert Pfister, Associate Director, Montana Forest & Conservation Experiment Station

Donald Potts, Associate Dean

Jack Ward Thomas, Boone & Crockett Professor of Wildlife Conservation

Michael Patterson, Associate Professor, Wildlife/Recreation Management

Lecture Series and Publication Staff Donald Bedunah, ................................................................ Lecture and Fellowship Coordinator

Jason Mouw ............................................................................................................ Plum Creek Fellow

Jennifer O'Loughlin .................................................. Editorial Supervision, Publication Design

Lucille Hilbert, Assistant to the Dean ............... Lecture Series Logistics and Coordination

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--

The Lectures

Patrick Moore Director, Greenspirit, Vancouver, British Columbia

The Future ofThings: Environmentalism for the 21st Century 7

James D. Arney Principal Investigator, Forest Biometrics, St. Regis, Montana

New Directions in the Management of Forested landscapes 76

Jonathan B. Haufler Director, Ecosystem Management Research Institute, Seeley Lake, MT

Practical Approaches to Ecosystem Management at landscape Scales 27

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The Future ofThings: Environmentalism for the 21st Century

The Future of Things: Environmentalism for the 21st Century Patrick Moore

Patrick Moore has been a leader in the international environmental field for over 25 years. He is a founding member of Greenpeace and served for nine years as president of Greenpeace Canada and seven years as a director of Greenpeace International.

In 1991, Dr. Moore founded Greenspirit, a consultancy focusing on environmental policy and public involvement in the resource and energy sectors.

Recently, Dr. Moore has been focused on British Columbia and the promotion of sustainability and consensus building among competing concerns. As chair of the Forest Practices Committee of the Forest Alliance of BC, he leads the process of developing the "Principles of Sustainable Forestry," which have been adopted by a majority of the Industry.

As we prepare for the 21st century, environmental thinkers are divided along a sharp fault line. There are the doomsayers who predict the collapse of the global ecosystem. There are the technological optimists who believe that we can feed 12 billion people and solve all our problems with science and technology. I do not believe that either of these extremes makes sense. There is a middle road based on science and logic, the combination of which is sometimes referred to as common sense. There are real problems, and there is much we can do to improve the state of the environment.

I was born and raised in the tiny fishing and logging village of Winter Harbour on the northwest tip of Vancouver Island, in the rain forest by the Pacific. I didn't realize what a blessed childhood I'd had, playing on the tidal flats by the salmon spawning streams in the rain forest, until I was shipped away to boarding school in Vancouver at age 14. I eventually attended the University of BC, studying the life sCiences: biology, forestry, genetics. But it was when I discovered ecology that I realized that through science I could gain an insight into the mystery of the rain forest I had known as a child. I became a born-again ecologist and, in the late 1960s, was soon transformed into a radical environmental activist.

I found myself in a church basement in Vancouver with a like-minded group of people, planning a protest campaign against U.S. hydrogen bomb testing in Alaska. We proved that a somewhat ragtag looking group of activists could sail a leaky old

New Directions in Management of Forest Landscapes I

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Patrick Moore

halibut boat across the North Pacific Ocean and change the course of history. By creating a focal point for opposition to the tests, we got on national news and helped build a ground-swell of opposition to nuclear testing in the U.S. and Canada. When that bomb went off in November 1971, it was the last hydrogen bomb ever detonated on planet Earth. Even though there were four more tests planned in the series, President Nixon canceled them due to public opposition. This was the birth of Greenpeace.

Flushed with victory and knowing we could bring about change by getting up and doing something, we were welcomed into the longhouse of the Kwakiutl Nation at Alert Bay near the north end of Vancouver Island. We were made brothers of the tribe because they believed in what we were doing. This began the tradition of the Warriors of the Rainbow, after a Cree legend that predicted one day when the skies are black and the birds fall dead to the ground and the rivers are poisoned, people of all races, colors and creeds will join together to form the Warriors of the Rainbow to save the Earth from environmental destruction. We named our ship the Rainbow Warrior, and I spent 15 years on the front lines of the eco-movement as we evolved from that church basement into the world's largest environmental activist organization.

Next, we took on French atmospheric nuclear testing in the South Pacific. They proved a bit more difficult than the U.S. Atomic Energy Administration. But after many years of protest voyages and campaigning, involving loss of life on our side, they were first driven underground and eventually stopped testing altogether.

In 1975, we set sail deep-sea into the North Pacific against the Soviet Union's factory whaling fleets that were slaughtering the last of the sperm whales off California. We put ourselves in front of the harpoons in little rubber boats and made Walter Cronkite's evening news. That really put Greenpeace on the map. In 1979, the International Whaling Commission banned factory whaling in the North Pacific, and soon it was banned in all the world's oceans.

In 1978, I was arrested off Newfoundland for sitting on a baby seal, trying to shield it from the hunter's club. I was convicted under the draconianly named Seal Protection Regulations that made it illegal to protect seals. In 1984, baby sealskins were banned from European markets, effectively ending the slaughter.

Can you believe that in the early 1980s, the countries of Western Europe were pooling their low and medium level nuclear wastes, putting them in thousands of oil drums, loading them on ships and dumping them in the Atlantic Ocean as a way of "disposing" of the wastes? In 1984, a combined effort by Greenpeace and the UK Seafarer's Union put an end to that practice for good.

By the mid-1980s, Greenpeace had grown from that church basement into an organization with an income of over US$100 million per year, offices in 21 countries and over 100 campaigns around the world, now tackling toxic waste, acid rain, uranium mining and drift net fishing as well as the original issues. We had won over a majority of the public in the industrialized democracies. Presidents and prime ministers were talking about the environment on a daily basis.

For me, it was time to make a change. I had been against at least three or four things every day of my life for 15 years; I decided I'd like to be in favor of some-

The University of Montana School of Forestry 2000 Plum Creek Lectures


thing for a change. I made the transition from the politics of confrontation to the politics of building consensus. After all, when a majority of people decide they agree with you, it is probably time to stop hitting them over the head with a stick and sit down and talk to them about finding solutions to our environmental problems.

All social movements evolve from an earlier period of polarization and confrontation, during which a minority struggles to convince society that its cause is true and just, eventually followed by a time of reconciliation if a majority of the population accepts the values of the new movement. For the environmental movement, this transition began to occur in the mid-1980s. The term sustainable development was adopted to describe the challenge of taking the new environmental values we had popularized and incorporating them into the traditional social and economic values that have always governed public policy and our daily behavior. We cannot simply switch to basing all our actions on purely environmental values. Every day, six billion people wake up with real needs for food, energy and materials. The challenge for sustainability is to provide for those needs in ways that reduce negative impact on the environment. But any changes must also be socially acceptable and technically and economically feasible. It is not always easy to balance environmental, social and economic priorities. Compromise and cooperation with the involvement of government, industry, academia and the environmental movement are required to achieve sustainability. It is this effort to find consensus among competing interests that has occupied my time for the past 15 years.

Not all my former colleagues saw things that way. They rejected consensus politics and sustainable development in favor of continued confrontation and everincreasing extremism. They ushered in an era of zero tolerance and left-wing politics. Some of the features of this environmental extremism are:

Environmental extremists are antihuman. Humans are characterized as a cancer on the Earth. To quote eco-extremist Herb Hammond, "of all the components of the ecosystem, humans are the only ones we know to be completely optional." Isn't that a lovely thought?

They are anti-science and technology. All large machines are seen as inherently destructive and unnatural. Science is invoked to justify positions that have nothing to do with science. Unfounded opinion is accepted over demonstrated fact.

Environmental extremists are anti-trade - not just free trade, but anti-trade in general. In the name of bioregionalism, they would bring in an age of ultranationalist xenophobia. The original "Whole Earth" vision of one world family is lost in a hysterical campaign against globalization and free trade.

They are anti-business. All large corporations are depicted as inherently driven by greed and corruption. Profits are definitely not politically correct. The liberal democratic, market-based model is rejected even though no viable alternative is proposed to provide for the material needs of six billion people. As expressed by the Native Forest Network, "it is necessary to adopt a global phase out strategy of consumer-based industrial capitalism.:· I think they mean civilization.

New Directions in Management of Forest Landscapes 3

Patrick Moore

And they are just plain anti-civilization. In the final analysis, eco-extremists project a naive vision of returning to the supposedly utopian existence in the garden of Eden, conveniently forgetting that in the old days, people lived to an average age of 35, and there were no dentists. In their Brave New World, there will be no more chemicals, no more .airplanes and certainly no more polyester suits.

Let me give you some specific examples that highlight the movement's tendency to abandon science and logic and to get the priorities completely mixed up through the use of sensationalism, misinformation and downright lies.

The Brent Spar Oil Rig

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In 1995, Shell Oil was granted permission by the British Environment Ministry to dispose of the North Sea oil rig "Brent Spar" in deep water in the North Atlantic Ocean. Greenpeace immediately accused Shell of using the sea as a "dustbin." Greenpeace campaigners maintained that there were hundreds of tonnes of petroleum wastes on board the Brent Spar and that some of these were radioactive. They organized a consumer boycott of Shell, and service stations were firebombed in Germany. The boycott cost the company millions in sales. German Chan~ellor Helmut Kohl denounced the British government's decision to allow the dumping. Caught completely off guard, Shell ordered the tug that was already towing the rig to its burial site to turn back. They then announced they had abandoned the plan for deep-sea disposal. This embarrassed British Prime Minister John Major.

Independent investigation revealed that the rig had been properly cleaned and did not contain the toxic and radioactive waste claimed by Greenpeace. Green peace wrote to Shell apologizing for the factual error. But they did not change their position on deep-sea disposal, despite the fact that on-land disposal would cause far greater environmental impact.

During all the public outrage directed against Shell for daring to sink a large piece of steel and concrete, it was never noted that Greenpeace had purposely sunk its own ship off the coast of New Zealand in 1986. When the French government bombed and sunk the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour in 1985, the vessel was permanently disabled. It was later refloated, patched up, cleaned and towed to a marine park where it was sunk in shallow water as a dive site. Greenpeace said the ship would be an artificial reef and would support increased marine life.

The Brent Spar and the Rainbow Warrior are in no way fundamentally different from one another. The sinking of the Brent Spar could also be rationalized as providing habitat for marine creatures. It's just that the public relations people at Shell are not as clever as those at Greenpeace. In this case, Greenpeace got away with using misinformation, even though they had to admit their error after the fact . After spending tens of millions of dollars on studies, Shell recently announced that it had abandoned any plan for deep-sea disposal and will support a proposal to reuse the rig as pylons in a dock extension project in Norway. Tens of millions of


The Future ofThings: Environmenta lism for the 21st Century

doliars and much precious time wasted over an issue that had nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with misinformation and fundraising hysteria.

To make matters worse, Greenpeace successfully campaigned in 1998 for a ban on all marine disposal of disused oil installations. This will result in hundreds of millions, even billions, of dollars in unnecessary costs. One obvious solution · would be to designate an area in the North Sea for the creation of a large artificial reef and to sink oil rigs there after cleaning them. This would provide a breeding area for fish and other marine life, enhancing the biological and economic productivity of the sea. But Green peace isn't looking for solutions, only conflicts and bad guys .

Exotic Species There has been a recent flurry of sensationalist warnings about the threat of

exotic species. Zealous cadres of conservation biologists descend on wetlands to rip foreign weeds from the bog, declaring that "a rapidly spreading invasion of exotic plants and animals is destroying our nation's biological diversity." It's amazing how a word that was so good, as in "exotic paradise" and "exotic pleasure," is now used to describe an alleged biological holocaust.

I was inspired to write about exotic species when I heard a news story from Washington D.C. in the spring of 1999. The citizens there were distressed to find that a family of beavers had taken up residence and was busy felling the Japanese cherry trees that adorned the banks of the Potomac River. It became a national emergency of sorts, and a great effort was made to trap every la!'!t beaver. There was no mention made of the fact that the beaver is a native North American species, whereas the cherry trees are exotics, imported from Japan. Yet there was no question which species the public favored.

In fact, the reason we dislike certain species and like others has nothing to do with whether or not they are exotic. By playing on people's natural suspicion of all things foreign, environmentalists confuse the issue and give the public a misleading picture. There are actually thousands of exotic species that are not only beneficial, they are also the mainstays of our daily lives. Food crops like wheat, rice and cabbage are all exotics when grown in North America. Vegetables that originated in the Americas, such as beans, corn and potatoes, are exotics when they are grown in Europe. All around the world, agriculture is largely based on species that originated somewhere else. This is also the case for domestic animals, garden plants and street trees.

There are also hundreds of native species of plants and animals that we consider undesirable. For centuries, we have referred to them as weeds, pests, vermin and disease. There are also many exotic species that fall into this category. And, of course, there are many native species that are considered extremely beneficial, especially those that provide food for a growing population. The point is, both exotic and native species can be desirable or undesirable from a human perspective, depending on how they affect our lives. Our almost innate dislike of rats and spiders has nothing to do with whether or not they are native or exotic; it is due to


Patrick Moore

the possibility of deadly disease or a fatal bite. And even though dandelions in the lawn are hardly a life-and-death issue, millions are spent each year to rid lawns of these "weeds."

Certain exotic species have resulted in severe negative impacts. The most notorious case involved the introduction of European species of animals to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands when Europeans colonized these regions beginning about 225 years ago. Many native species, flightless birds aqd grounddwelling marsupials in particular, were not able to survive the introduction of predators such as rats, cats and foxes. As a result, hundreds of native species were eliminated. Another well-known exotic is Dutch elm disease, a fungus that actually originated in Asia, came through Europe and on to North America, where it has resulted in the death of many native elms in the U.S. and Canada.

There can be no doubt that we should always be careful when considering the introduction of a new species and that regulations are needed to prevent undesirable accidental introductions. At the same time, we must not lose sight of the fact that introduced species play a vital, indeed essential role in modern society. Each species must be evaluated on its own merits. The introduction of some species may be desirable in one region and undesirable in others. Islands are particularly susceptible to introductions because they are isolated and their native species are not subjected to as wide a variety of predators and diseases. When rats are introduced to islands that support large bird rookeries, there is often a precipitous decline -in bird populations due to predation on eggs and nestlings.

There is really no difference when considering the use of an exotic species of tree for managed forests. The main reason we tend to use native species of trees for forestry in North America is because they are the best available in terms of productivity and wood quality. In other regions, this is not the case. Radiata pine from California has been very successful in New Zealand, Australia and Chile. Eucalyptus from Australia is the forestry species of choice in many parts of Brazil, Portugal and South Africa. Douglas-fir from Oregon has become the number two species of softwood produced in France. And Chinese larch is a favorite for reforestation in Scotland, where forest cover was lost centuries ago to sheep farming.

The Invisible Poisons

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Beginning with the Natural Resources Defense Council's scare tactics about the use of the pesticide Alar on apples, the environmental movement has been very clever at inventing campaigns that make us afraid of our food. They conjure up invisible poi!?ons that will give us cancer, birth defects and mutations, and otherwise kill us in our sleep. We will all soon be reduced to an hermaphroditic frenzy by endocrine-mimicking compounds as we approach the Toxic Saturation Point.

Meanwhile, the National Cancer Institute of Canada conducted a joint study with U.S. counterparts beginning in 1994 to investigate the possible relationship between pesticide residues in food and cancer in humans. The findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal Cancer in 1997, concluded that the study could not find "any definitive evidence to suggest that synthetic pesticides contribute



significantly to overall cancer mortality," a careful way of saying they found zero connection. And yet, the article pointed out, over 30 percent of cancers in humans are caused by tobacco, a natural substance. And another 35 percent are caused by poor diet, mainly too much fat and cholesterol and not enough fresh fruit and vegetables. The main effect of the environmental campaign against pesticides is to scare parents into avoiding fresh fruit and vegetables for themselves and their children.

The same kind of scare tactics are now being employed in the campaign against biotechnology and genetically modified foods, even though there is no evidence of negative human health effects, and environmental concerns are blown completely out of proportion. Large corporations are in retreat, and governments are scrambling to get control of the issue. Unfortunately, some biotechnology companies and associations continue to belittle public concerns and resist disclosure of food ingredients. There is no escaping the fact that this is a new technology and that it must be introduced carefully and sometimes slowly.

In response to the fact that there is no evidence of negative impacts, environmentalists invariably resort to the so-called "precautionary principle," which is actually not a principle at all. If it were, we could do virtually nothing because we never know all future outcomes of actions taken today. It would be better if it were called the "precautionary attitude" or the "precautionary approach." While it is perfectly legitimate to be cautious, we cannot allow that to freeze us in our tracks. It is sobering to consider that the terrible side effects of DDT, now largely corrected, are not a sufficient argument to ban pesticides altogether, any more than those caused by thalidomide are sufficient to ban all pharmaceuticals.

Climate Change Global climate change is another area where extreme statements are made, in

this case on both sides of the debate, when there is little in science to defend them. Some things are quite certain. Carbon dioxide levels are rising, and our consumption of fossil fuels and deforestation in the tropics are probably the main causes. There is a lot of evidence that the earth's climate is warming: The glaciers in Alaska are retreating, and great egrets are visiting northern Lake Huron. But here the consensus ends.

Climate change is a wonderful example of the limitations of science. There are two fundamental characteristics of climate change that make the empirical (scientific) method very difficult to use to predict the future. First, there are simply too many uncontrollable variables- the empirical method works best when you can control all the variables except the one you are studying. Second, and even more significant, is the fact that we have only one planet to o)Jserve. If we had 50 planet Earths and increased the carbon dioxide levels on 25 of them, leaving the other 25 alone, we might be able to determine a statistical difference between the two samples. With only one Earth, we are reduced to complex computer models of questionable value, and a lot of guesswork.

Climate change is not about scientific certainty; it is about the evaluation and


Patrick Moore

management of risk. I think it is fair to say that climate change poses a real risk, however small or large. When faced with risk, the logical thing to do is to buy and insurance policy. Unfortunately, we have no actuarial science on which to base the size of the insurance premium; this is where the guesswork comes in. Is it worth reducing fossil fuel consumption by 60 percent to avoid global warming? Should we add the risk of massive nuclear energy construction to offset carbon dioxide emissions? What does "worth doing away" really mean? Is it possible that global warming might have more positive effects than negative ones? ·

Biodiversity and Forests

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The Rainforest Action Network, an eco-political group based in San Francisco, recently published on their web page that "the International Botanical Society recently released the results of an extensive study showing that, at current rates, two-thirds of the world's plant and animal species will become extinct by the year 2100." The International Botanical Society is nowhere to be found on the Internet.

More seriously, in March 1996, the World Wildlife Fund held a media conference in Geneva during the first meeting of the U.N. Panel on Forests. They stated that there are now 50,000 species going extinct every year due to human activity, more than at any time since the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago. Most significantly, WWF stated that the main cause of these extinctions is "commercial logging." This was largely due, according to WWF director-general Claude Martin, to "massive deforestation in industrialized countries." The statements made at the media conference were broadcast and printed around the world, giving millions of people the impression that forestry wa~ the main cause of species extinction.

I have tried to determine the basis for this allegation, openly challenging the WWF to provide details of species extinctions caused by logging. To date, there is no scientific evidence on which to base such a claim. WWF has provided no list of species that have become extinct due to logging. In particular, the claim of "massive deforestation" in industrialized countries runs counter to information provided by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. According to the FAO, the area of forest in the industrialized world is actually growing by about 0.2% per year, due to the reforestation of land that was previously cleared for farming.

In May 1996, I wrote to Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, in his capacity as President of WWF. I stated in part:

Myself and many colleagues who specialize in forest science are distressed at recent statements made by WWF regarding the environmental impact of forestry. These statements indicate a break with WWF's strong tradition of basing their policies on science and reason. To the best of our knowledge, not a single species has become extinct in North America due to forestry.



Prince Philip replied:

I have to admit I did not see the draft of the statement that (WWF spokesperson) Jean-Paul Jeanrenaud was to make at the meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forestry in Geneva. The first two of his comments (50,000 species per year and the dinosaur comparison) are open to question, but they are not seriously relevant to the issue. However, I quite agree that his third statement (logging being the main cause of extinction) is certainly contentious and the points that you make are all good ones. All I can say is that he was probably thinking of tropical forests when he made the comment.

Since this exchange of correspondence, WWF has changed the way they characterize the impact of forestry in relation to species extinction. At their "Forests for Life" conference in San Francisco in May 1997, there was no mention made of forestry being the main cause of species extinction. Instead, WWF unveiled a report stating that "three quarters of the continent's forest ecoregions are threatened with extinction, showing for the first time that it is not just individual species but entire ecosystems that are at risk in North America." The word 'extinction' is normally used to mean that something has been completely eliminated. It is entirely beyond reason to suggest that three quarters of the forested areas of North America will become 'extinct,' yet this is what WWF is proclaiming to the public.

I have been a subscriber to National Geographic since my father first gave it to me as a gift when I was in school. I have always looked forward to the latest edition, with all the wonders of the world between its covers . Lately, however, even this stalwart of objective science has fallen prey to the prophets of doom who believe a human-caused "mass extinction" is already underway.

The February-1999 special edition on "Biodiversity- The Fragile Web," contained a particularly unfortunate article titled "The Sixth Extinction." This refers to the fact that there have been five main extinction events during the past 500 million years, the two most severe of which are believed to have been caused by meteor impacts. It may well be that all five were of extraterrestrial origin. During the most recent mass extinction, 65 million years ago, 17 per cent of all the taxonomic families of life were lost, including the dinosaurs. An even greater extinction occurred 250 million years ago, when 54 per cent of all families perished, including the trilobites. (Family is a term used in taxonomy, two levels up from individual species- for example the cat family, the lily family and the hummingbird family. Each family contains many, sometimes hundreds, of individual species.)

The first two pages of the article contain a photo of Australian scientist Dr. Tim F~annery looking over a collection of stuffed and pickled small extinct mammals. The caption under the photo reads: "In the next century half of all species could be annihilated, as were these mammals seen in Tim Flannery's lab at the Australian Museum. Unlike the past five, this mass extinction is being fueled by humans." To be sure, mention is made later in the article that the Australian extinctions were caused by the introduction of cats and foxes when Europeans colonized the region over 200 years ago. This resulted in the loss of about 35 animal species, mainly of


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Patrick Moore

flightless birds and ground-dwelling marsupials that were not able to defend themselves against these new predators . This is hardly a "mass extinction," and the cause was a one-time introduction of exotic species. The rate of extinction of Australian mammals has slowed considerably in recent decades, partly because the most vulnerable species are already extinct, and partly because people started caring about endangered species and began working to prevent them from going extinct. In Australia today, there are programs to control wild cats and foxes, some of which have resulted in the recovery of native animal populations . ·

The use of the Australian example to justify claims that we are experiencing a mass extinction is put into focus by Brian Groombridge, editor of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, when he states, "around 75% of recorded extinctions ... have occurred on islands. Very few extinctions have been recorded in continental tropical forest habitat, where mass extinction events are predicted to be underway." It is clearly misleading to point to the specific and exceptional case of extinctions caused by the introduction of new species to islands as evidence of a worldwide mass extinction. The National Geographic article goes on to quote biologist Stuart Pimm; "It's not just species on islands or in rain forests or just birds or big charismatic mammals. It's everything and it's everywhere. It is a worldwide epidemic of extinctions." Yet nearly every example used in the article involves islands such as Australia and Tasmania, Mauritius, Easter Island and the many islands of the South Pacific.

The-Sixth Extinction article features a graph depicting the number of taxonomic families that have existed on earth for the past 600 million years . The graph shows that, despite the five great extinctions during this period, the number of living families has risen steadily, from around 200 families 500 million years ago to over 1,000 families today. This tendency to diversify over time is one of the major features of evolution. The line of the graph is a thick, solid one until it reaches the present day, whereupon it turns abruptly downward as if to indicate a loss of families due to the "mass extinction" now underway. But the line does not remain thick and solid; it turns fuzzy right at the point where it turns down. I wrote to National Geographic and asked, "Why does the line turn fuzzy? Is it because there are actually no known families that have become extinct in recent times? I do not know of any families of 'beetles, amphibians, birds and large mammals' that have become extinct as implied in the text."

The reply to my inquiry came from Robin Adler, one of the researchers who worked on the article. She thanked me for "sharing my thoughts on this complicated and controversial issue" but offered no answer to my question about the graph. Instead, she asked me to

Rest assured that . .. the many members of our editorial team . .. worked closely with numerous experts in conservation biology, paleobiology, and related fields. The concept of a "sixth extinction" is widely discussed and, for the most part, strongly supported by our consultants and other experts in these areas, although specific details such as the time frame in which it will occur and the number of species that will be affected continues to be debated.



Nowhere in the National Geographic article is there any mention that the "sixth extinction" is a controversial subject: It is presented as if it is a known fact. The reply makes it clear that the "mass extinction" is actually in the future ("the time frame in which it will occur"). In other words, there is no evidence that a mass extinction is actually occurring now, even though the article plainly implies that it is. The reply also refers to the sixth extinction as a "concept," implying that it is just an idea rather than a proven fact. Perhaps a better title for the article would have been "No Mass Extinction Yet, Maybe Someday."

It is very frustrating when a trusted institution such as the National Geographic resorts to sensationalism, exaggeration and misleading illustrations. There is enough bad science and misinformation in the popular press as it is. One can only hope that the present tendency to ignore science and logic, rightly referred to as a "bad intellectual climate" by environmental philosopher Henry H. Webster, will eventually come to an end.

Trees Are The Answer If trees are the answer, you might ask, what is the question? I believe that trees

are the answer to a lot of questions about our future . These include: How can we advance to a more sustainable economy based on renewable fuels and materials? How can we improve literacy and sanitation in developing countries while reversing deforestation and protecting wildlife at the same time? How can we reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted to the atmosphere, carbon dioxide in particular? How can we increase the amount of land that will support a greater diversity of species? How can we help prevent soil erosion and provide clean air and water? How can we make this world more beautiful and green? The answer is, by growing more trees and then using more wood, both as a substitute for nonrenewable fossil fuels and materials such as steel, concrete and plastic, and as paper products for printing, packaging and sanitation.

When the world's leaders met in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 at the Earth Summit, they agreed tharthree issues are at the top of the international environmental agenda: climate change, biodiversity, and forests. Of course, there are many other important issues, including toxic chemicals and nuclear waste, but they are secondary compared to these "Big Three," all of which are global in nature. Unfortunately, most scientists, activists and policy-makers have specialized in one or the other of these critical areas of concern and have not focussed as strongly on the profound interrelationships among them. This has resulted in a situation in which most of the environmental movement has adopted a position on forests that is ·logically inconsistent with its positions on climate change and biodiversity. The risk of climate change is mainly due to fossil fuel consumption and the emission of C02• The risk to biodiversity is mainly due to the loss of forests caused by clearing for agriculture and cities. A large part of the solution to both these issues involves growing more trees and using more wood. The environmental movement has adopted a policy that is the opposite of this approach.

When considering forests in isolation from the other major issues, it may seem


Patrick Moore

logical that we can save them by reducing wood consumption - that is, by cutting fewer trees. Greenpeace has appealed to the members of the United Nations to reduce wood consumption and use "environmentally appropriate alternatives" instead. The Rainforest Action Network is campaigning for a 75% reduction in wood use in the United States through its "wood use reduction program." The Sierra Club has adopted a formal policy called "zero cut" that would put an end to commercial forestry on federal public land. All these campaigns can J?e summed up as "cut fewer trees- use less wood."

There are two problems with this approach. First, just because people stop using wood for fuel or building houses doesn't mean they will not need warmth or shelter. The fact that six billion humans wake up every morning with real needs for energy, food and materials must be taken into account. All the likely substitutes for wood - steel, concrete, plastic and fossil fuels - have far higher emissions of C0

2

associated with their production and use. Using less wood will automatically result in the use of more of these nonrenewable resources, and an inevitable increase in C02 emissions. Second, much of the land that is used to grow trees could just as well be cleared and used for grazing, farming and housing. If there is less demand for wood, there will be less economic incentive to grow trees and retain forests . It is unrealistic to expect people to retain vast areas of the landscape in forests if they cannot use them. The best way to encourage people to retain and expand forests is to make the resources they provide, including wood, more valuable.

Environmentalism For the 21st Century

12

It's easy to see that the mainstream of the environmental movement has fallen prey to misguided priorities, misinformation, dogmatism and self-interest. Soon after I left Greenpeace in 1986, I found out that they had initiated a pension plan. I knew I had gotten out just in time. In the early days, many of us realized that our job was to work ourselves out of the job, not to give ourselves jobs for life. I feel the same way about my efforts to promote sustainability, sustainable forestry and the application of science and logic to environmental issues. I am sometimes amazed by the fact that this seems more difficult than my original work to promote awareness of ecology and the environment. Perhaps this time, I do have a job for life. Still no pension plan, however!

What are the main features of a rational environmental policy for the 21st century? Some points to consider:

Wherever possible, we should move towards an economy based on renewable energy and material resources. Sustainability is not synonymous with renewability, but it is strongly linked to it. Where we do use nonrenewable resources, they should be used wisely and recycled whenever practical.

We should learn to manage our population voluntarily. The UN Conference on Population, held in Cairo in 1994, concluded that the most effective way to manage population growth is to educate and empower women. This leaves no place for patriarchy, religious fundamentalism or dictatorships.



We should develop a more globally unified analysis of the relationships among land use, energy and resource consumption, forests and biodiversity, and population. Policies that have global implications must not be logically inconsistent one with the other.

We should learn to be better gardeners at both local and global scales. With six or eight billion mouths to feed, this will require more intensive agricultural production including the use of fertilizer, synthetic pesticides and biotechnology. It is a simple fact of arithmetic that the less land we need to grow our food, the more is available for forest and wilderness.

Urban sprawl must be brought under control. We have allowed the automobile to determine urban form by default. Three hundred thousand hectares of forest are lost in the United States every year, all of it due to 200 cities spreading out over the land. Denser, more livable cities must be designed if population continues to grow.

Deforestation in the tropics must eventually be stabilized or reversed. This can be accomplished by the transfer of intensive agricultural practices, the establishment of fast-growing, sustainable fuel-wood plantations and the management of population growth.

As an ecologist and environmentalist, not a political scientist or political activist, I have always shied away from strong opinions of poverty and class. But it seems unacceptable to me that so many hundreds of millions of people live at a material standard that we in the industrialized countries would not consider acceptable for a dignified life. I believe there is a great deal to be learned by exploring the relationships between ecology and politi<;s. In some ways, politics is the ecology of the human species. The two subjects have developed such completely different disciplines and terminologies that it is hard to think of them together. But I believe we must if we are to gain a truly holistic understanding of the relationship between ourselves and our society, and the Earth on which we ultimately depend.

"MAY THE FOREST BE WITH YOU"

I have a question about species extinction and forestry. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker, what happened to it?

One of the four bird species which has become extinct since the European c<;>lonization in North America. Twenty-six went extinct in Hawaii, there's your introduced predator situation. I have looked into every bit of literature and knowledge around the Ivory-billed Woodpecker because it has been suggested that that was caused by habitat loss due to vast logging that took place in the forests of the southeastern U.S., where it lived. First, that wasn't forestry, it was land clearance for cattle and cotton. It was logging- you have to log an area before you can convert it into a farm . But that's not forestry. Second, there was plenty of suitable habitat for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the bottom lands, which were not


Patrick Moore

suitable for agriculture because they flooded every year, and that was where the Ivory billed actually spent most of its time. Third, and most significant is that the Ivory-billed was hunted exclusively for its plumage, and there were very low population numbers to begin with, .partly because the Indians may have also hunted it for its plumage, which was very valuable. So, looking at everything, the last colo.ny of Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers was known to exist in a forest in one of the Carolinas that was cleared for farming, and that was the last anybody :;aw of those woodpeckers. I believe that a combination of land clearance for agriculture and hunting was responsible for the demise of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, but, to tell you the truth, the historical record is not as good as it could be.

What do you see is the role of planting genetically improved trees?

14

Genetically improved trees. We have to distinguish between three different kinds of genetic improvements. One is simple sexual breeding, where plus trees are taken and crossed with each other in the hopes of increasing some property, usually growth rate or some such thing. That's just normal breeding, which our agriculture has been based on for 10,000 years. Second is cloning, where you take high quality trees and you coppice them, such as in eucalyptus and poplar, you coppice them to many stems, then you clip the stems and put them in root hormones and create rooted cuttings, and they're all the same. This is being used in forestry, though not extensively in North America. In British Columbia, we have a pilot project in Yellow Cedar, what you call Alaska Cypress, its sematic embryogenesis in fact, where you take tiny little bits of the plant and clone it on a petri dish and clone a whole tree. We've got plantations of that, and they're doing really well. The third kind and the most controversial, of course, in terms of genetic manipulation is genetic engineering or gene splicing. A huge controversy surrounds this. I just returned from two weeks in Asia, where I was the guest of a multi-stakeholder, -an industry, academic, government organization based here in the U.S.- that is helping developing countries introduce agro-biotech applications. In Indonesia, they are actually growing BT cotton which is resistant to the ball worm, a huge pest to their cotton. They rely on importation of textiles and materials from Australia to support their textile industry, so they are interested in becoming selfsufficient in their cotton production. In general, I support these biotechnologies. I do not see any evidence of significant threats to human health or environmental harm from biotech crops at present. Do you realize that the use of BT corn and cotton result in a drastic reduction in pesticide application? At the same time, these crops are experiencing two to three times more productivity because of no losses to the crop pests.



Why does the environmental movement have such a different message than you do?

I don't understand why, particularly on forestry and agriculture, the environmental movement has taken some pretty weird positions that I don't see as having any relationship to science or logic. For example, most environmentalists are against intensive agricultural production. They want to go back to growing green leafy vegetables organically or something, right? Well, we would have to cut down every forest in this world to grow enough food to feed ourselves with organic farming of our crops. Are we going to let the insects and rodents have it all? There is total illogic to that. If we want forests, which the environmental movement says it does, then we have to intensively manage existing agricultural lands for more productivity. Another example is deforestation in the tropics due to land clearing for agriculture. So what we (environmentalists) are going to do to save those forests is boycott tropical hardwoods. You know what they'll do then, then they really will cut down all their forests and grow papayas and sell you papayas instead. If you buy their wood, they'll grow new trees.

Do you mind commenting on prescribed fire vs. timber harvesting to meet the same goals?

I assume you mean a lower fuel load, in other words, to attempt to avoid catastrophic fire. For one thing, fire is fine, but it's very limited in its application, especially when there are so many towns and people living within the forests. So we can't expect fire to be the only tool we use. In addition, it make a fair bit of sense to use the wood rather than burn it. So, in most cases, I would be in favor of pruning, thinning, even doing a little bit of logging to pay for the· operation of reducing the fuel load to avoid catastrophic wildfire. There are cases where fire can be used successfully, but in most forests you'd better go in and do some thinning with chainsaws.

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James D. Arney

New Directions in the Management of Forested LandsGapes

James D. Arney Forest Biometrics St. Regis, MT

16

As principal investigator and owner of Forest Biometrics, James D. Arney has 35 years of experience in research, development and support of forest inventory, growth projection and forest planning systems in the western United States. He has been developing forest growth models and forest inventory software since 1968, and more than 400 PL1blic and private forestry professionals have used his software.

Dr. Arney has calibrated yield models for more than 20 commercial species, developed site index curves, taper models, designed in-place inventory systems, managed GIS systems and staff, developed hydrographic, soil and wildlife databases, and prepared and presented sustained-yield plans for public and private agencies in the western US. He has also developed silvicultural regimes and forest management plans for almost every major species and forest type found in the Pacific Northwest.

It is always a pleasure to be invited back to The University of Montana. The School of Forestry has continued over the years to provide a broad spectrum of science and technology to each graduating forester. The fundamentals are the same as they were 35 years ago when I attended this university. However, the demands of society and knowledge of limited natural resources (air, land and water) have brought forest management into every household within reach of a television, radio, newspaper and even the Internet.

Twenty years ago, the discussion was about multiple resource management. The big issue was just being able to address the need for m·anaging resources other than timber production. Resources such as range, watershed, wildlife, wilderness and recreation were considered in long-term planning, but only qualitatively. There was no real understanding or quantification of the balance of resource use and renewal.

Today we have quantified many aspects of multiple resource management. There are now terms such as biodiversity, late successional and snag-recruitment that attempt to quantify various aspects of the forested landscape outside of our communities. However, to set management goals for these forested landscapes,


New Directions in the Management of Forested Landscapes

we need much more quantification than what has been defined so far.

Before going further into this discussion, I wish to clarify a term that will be used through the rest of this lecture. That is "forest management." As defined in the Dictionary of Forestry (Society of American Foresters 1988):

Forestry is the profession embracing the science, art and practice of creating, managing, using and conserving forests and associated resources for human benefit and in a sustainable manner to meet desired goals, needs and values. The broad field of forestry consists of those biological, quantitative, managerial and social sciences as applied to forest management and conservation.

Therefore, forest management includes all aspects of the broad range of natural resources under the umbrella defined as forestry.

The two most critical and challenging dimensions of forest management that have been identified in the past 10 years are forest dynamics and spatial pattern. Forests are dynamic in four dimensions (time and three spatial) due to a broad array of impacts, only a few of which we can influence. Forest dynamics are also influenced by spatial patterns at a broad range of resolutions. The dynamics of tree growth are heavily influenced by proximity to other trees and vegetation competing for light, water and nutrients. The amount, distribution and rate of growth and mortality of individual trees depend on their species differences, vigor, tolerance to shade, fire, insects, disease and weather. Size, frequency and pattern of openings in the forest canopy affect both species and frequencies of regeneration of vegetation (trees, shrubs, grasses, forbs); wildlife grazing, hunting and thermal cover; soil moisture retention; and rate of distribution of fire, insects and disease.

As a society, we are concerned about the forest and have come to recognize the importance of spatial pattern to a limited degree. This is obvious in the broad interest in such terms as landscape management. Because of this interest, society has rushed to set bounds on defining what the forest landscape should contain. This has resulted in state regulations defining the number and distribution of snags, size of stream buffers, wildlife retention areas, minimum areas of watersheds with mature forest canopies, minimum percentages of old-growth forest and many others too confusing to categorize. These regulations are inconsistent from one jurisdiction to another and are founded (often admittedly) on ignorance more than science .

. Due to a lack of understanding of the dynamics and spatial patterns among stands, as compared to among watersheds or among forests, society defaulted to setting most management constraints at the stand level. Therefore, every stand must have a minimum quota of snags, down-woody debris, wildlife trees, species, ages, sizes and structures. Whether this is optimal for forest health, wildlife management or watershed management was never asked. When the dynamics of a period of drought or explosive insect populations occur, these forest structures may be the most susceptible. From a watershed management objective, a pattern


James D. Arney

of even-aged, healthy young stands may provide biodiversity among stands within the watershed while minimizing potential catastrophic loss to wildfire. A pattern of overstocked, mixed-age tolerant species may lead to high potential for catastrophic wildfire and an extended period (in years) of unusable water in the downstream community.

School of Forestry

18

Where then does The University of Montana School of Forestry fit into the needs and demands of society for management of forest landscapes? The School has a good balance in its faculty with regard to experience, skills and focus. There are four main focus points to consider in preparing the graduate forester for forest management in today's environment (Figure 1).

The foundation for developing, maintaining and updating forestry goals that have a balanced impact on the biojgeo/climatic environment of the forest landscape is absolutely essential for the inventory I planning forester. In the western United States, this person is usually between 25 and 45 years of age, has a Bachelor's Degree from an accredited Forestry School and is responsible for 40,000 to 200,000 acres. He or she reports to a forest manager, tribal council, board of directors, watershed superintendent or nonresident landowner. The supervisory person or group recognizes the necessary goals but does not have the skill set to achieve them. They are therefore dependent on the skills and available tools of

Figure 1

Focus Point Skill Set Experience(# Faculty)

Forestry Tools Biometrics 2 Remote Sensing 2

Planning I Management 2 Economics 2

Wood Technology 1

Forest Habitat Silvics 2 Ecology 5 Range 2 Soils 1

Hydrology 1 Fire 1

Forest Populations Pathology 'h Entomology 'h

Wildlife 7

Forest Uses Recreation 4 Sociology 3 Wilderness 1 Watershed

Timber


New Directions in the Management of Forested Landscapes

the inventory/planning forester. Due to the downsizing of most forestry depart ments in recent years, this is one person.

A forest inventory must be location-specific, and all attribute data must be updateable in some automated and repeatable process. The location-specific attributes are derived from third-party, public domain, geographic information systems that define public land survey, ownership, roads, rights-of-way, streams, lakes and wetlands. The forester must overlay stratified vegetation and harvest planning polygons on these other information bases to determine whether they conform with regulations, scale of operation, logistics, economics and sustainable forestry dynamics of alternative forest management plans . These alternative plans must be presented to the supervisory group with enough knowledge, explanation and confidence to provide a basis for decision m_aking. Often, changes in state regulations are proposed, and the forester has only a few weeks to rerun, analyze and present alternative long-term (100-year) plans for senior management.

Regardless of the overriding forest landscape use and goals, the forester must know how, when and to what degree various silvicultural treatments should be applied to a forest. The forester must actually suggest some degree and frequency of treatments to maintain the forest's health and stability. Sadly, society currently does not believe that treatments are necessary. It is a fact that, if left untouched, a forest will evolve from intolerant to tolerant species compositions and overstocked conditions. As the species composition evolves, age increases, general vigor declines, and the risk of insect, disease and fire increases. Under the right weather conditions, entire forests will burn with great intensity, and the entire cycle will begin again. This is one form of sustainable forestry, viewed on a 1,000-year basis. Since humans live less than 100 years, however, it is not a desirable management strategy for a forest landscape near our communities. It does not achieve watershed objectives, wildlife objectives, recreation objectives, timber production objectives or stable communities.

Therefore the message is: Regardless of the Forestry uses listed in the focus points (Figure 1), every

graduating forester must have complete understanding of the forest habitat skill sets and confidence in his/her ability to apply the forestry tools to a particular forest landscape.

If you do not understand silvics, ecology, range, soils, hydrology, fire and the tools to manage them, you are not in a position to manage the forest. You are limited to standing on the road with the rest of society, knowing what you want but not how to get there.

Based on personal experience as a professional consultant and more than 35 years of developing forest inventories , silvicultural regimes, growth projections and sustained-yield plans, I can state that the typical forester is under-skilled to take on the challenges of today's desires for land landscape management. This is true in private industry, watershed, tribal, county, state and federal agencies in Western states and Canadian provinces.


20

James D. Arney

Here are the components of the skill sets required of every professional forester.

End of Sophomore Year *Forest sampling (stands), stand sampling (plots), sub-sampling (trees ,

shrubs, snags)

* Inventory maintenance (MS-Access ) , PC-based GIS, acreage adjustments for roads and buffers

* Annual sampling frequency and intensity

* Site distribution and means to validate

* Habitat classification and updating methods

End of Junior Year *Inventory growth projection methods

* Applications, constraints, validation, reporting

* Silvicultural systems and yield differences

* Clearcut regimes, preferred species and densities

* Seed-tree regimes, regeneration systems

* Shelterwood regimes, habitat implications

*Selection regimes, single-tree versus group-wise

* Forest health, vigor, natural regeneration and tolerance

End of Senior Year * Harvest scheduling methods linked to GIS databases

* Hydro, wildlife, watershed and neighbor implications

*Planning for 100 years versus planning for 10 years

* Impact and silviculture of second and third rotations on planning

* Standards of merchandising and valuation

* Regulations by area, volume, value and net present value

* Harvest polygon-based planning versus stand-based planning

The Forestry School at The University of Montana has the faculty skills and experience to provide integrated education necessary for the graduate forester to meet today's and tomorrow's needs . The dynamics of the forest ecosystem and the spatial complexity of the landscape require that each forester know and apply a broad range of quantitative skills. Inventory design, sampling methods, silviculture and automated planning systems are essential skill sets and tools of every professional forester. Forestry management is a hands-on profession: You cannot stand on the sideline and hope for the correct outcome in your lifetime.


Practical Approaches to Ecosystem Management at Landscape Scales

Practical Approaches to Ecosystem Management at landscape Scales Jonathan B. Haufler

Jonathan B. Haufler is a wildlife and ecosystem ecologist who has been active in teaching, research and implementation of ecosystem management and wildlife management for more than 25 years. He was on the faculty of the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Michigan State University for over 13 years. In 1993, he became manager of wildlife and ecology for Boise Cascade Corporation, where he was responsible for policy and implementation of the corporation'S wildlife, aquatic and watershed programs; he also initiated and implemented three large ecosystem management projects.

Dr. Haufler left Boise Cascade in 2000 to become executive director of the Ecosystem Management Research Institute, a nonprofit institute with a mission of providing research, training and implementation assistance to ecosystem management, biodiversity conservation and landscape assessment initiatives.

I would like to present some thoughts on how we can approach natural resource management across large landscapes. First, I will discuss some dichotomies in society's attitudes toward natural resource management and their implications to ecosystem management approaches. Next, I will describe collaborative ecosystem management as a solution to many of the challenges faced by natural resource managers today. As part of its implementation, I will discuss the various philosophical approaches to the conservation of biological diversity. Firially, I will provide a brief overview of an approach that has been applied in an ecosystem management project in Idaho, and the implications of this example to management of large landscapes.

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Jonathan B. Haufler

Dichotomies of Societal Values

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Why do we need ecosystem management? The root of the controversies we are facing in natural resource management today is the rapidly increasing human population. The U.S. population is over 280 million and increasing at about 1% a year. While this doesn't sound like a high rate, it represents adding another Connecticut in population every year, and another California every 10 years. In addition to these population increases, demands for resources are also increasing. For example, both national and worldwide demands for wood have been increasing (Cinnamon and others 1999). The U.S., with about 5% of the world's population, represents about 40% of the world's use of natural resources.

While U.S. demands for resources are increasing and are disproportional to the rest of the world, the nation is also reducing its output of natural resources from federal lands and constraining land management on other lands. For example, national forest production of timber has decreased by 70% in the last 10 years, oil and gas leasing by 40%, and livestock grazing by 10%. While I am not implying that historical levels of use on national forest lands were necessarily appropriate, or that other lands won't benefit from better stewardship practices, I am pointing out the philosophical dichotomy between supply and demand within this country and our society's conflicting views on consumption and protection. The reduction in wood and fiber supply from public sources, in combination with increased stewardship requirements, has led to increased harvest levels from lands where harvesting is still allowed and increased prices for many products. For example, we have seen a shift in harvest levels from the Pacific Northwest to the southeastern United States.

U.S. industrial forestlands are increasingly being managed with intensive silviculture practices to produce more wood or fiber from the same acreage. The goal is to produce more growth and yield through the use of such practices as genetically improved stocks and increased use of fertilizers and pesticides. Increases in growth and yield can be realized and economically justified due to the higher value of wood products. However, intensive silviculture produces conditions that less and less resemble natural forests. Increasing the productivity of industrial lands to meet society's demands can be an effective way to meet commodity needs. But when coupled with decreased harvest on federal lands, this trend drives land use objectives to two extremes - one that emphasizes minimal human activity and another that maximizes outputs within stewardship bounds.

One effect of the changing U.S. economics of wood and fiber supply and demand has been importation of more of our wood and fiber and, in effect, exportation of our environmental problems. According to MacCleery and LeMaster (1999), imports from Canada have increased from 10.5 tci 17.8 billion board feet per year, representing a change from 27% to 36% of the U.S. softwood lumber consumption. In addition, most major forest products companies are aggressively looking for timber and fiber sources in other countries. By simultaneously increasing our demands for wood and fiber and decreasing the source for these commodities, we have produced a price increase that further supports and encourages increased production per acre in the U.S. while encouraging suppliers to look for alternative sources worldwide. Some of these worldwide sources may



be in areas where environmental concerns and safeguards are not as developed as they are in the U.S. ·

Another aspect of this dichotomy has been society's general perception of various groups, as discussed by MacCleery and LeMaster (1999). Loggers, ranchers, miners and other commodity producers have sometimes been subjected to scorn and ridicule by other members of society. Yet a suburbanite, living in a 5,000-square-foot home, owning three cars (including two SUV's that average 15 miles to the gallon) and jetting off to Cancun for a weekend getaway is, if otherwise well-behaved, a respected member of society. This dichotomy illustrates the disconnect between suppliers and consumers in today's society. The comedian Dennis Miller has described this dichotomy: He defined a developer as someone who wants to build a house in the woods, and an environmentalist as someone who already owns a house in the woods.

So what does this dichotomy mean to natural resource management in the U.S.? What is the appropriate level of commodity production from lands within the U.S., whether federal or private? Should we have more wilderness, more intensification of silviculture, or both? This question is particularly relevant in the western U.S.

Solutions to this dilemma are complex and difficult. Obviously, the root of the problem is human population growth and increasing levels of natural resource use. Society needs to be kept aware of the consequences of its reproductive and consumptive behaviors. The long-term solution is to modify these behaviors, which may prove to be impossible. The short-term solution may be to develop more effective collaborative processes to implement ecosystem management. There is a need for a more common view of a land ethic. Aldo Leopold, a visionary who is frequently quoted for his views on land ethics, can perhaps provide some guidance with his definition of conservation:

Conservation means harmony between men and land. When land does well for its owner, and the owner does well by his land; when both end up better by reason of their partnership, we have conservation. When one or the other grows poorer, we do not. Conservation, therefore, is a positive exercise of skill and insight, not merely a negative exercise of abstinence or caution.

Among the challenges that natural resource managers must address is the conservation of biological diversity and the realization that this means conducting planning across larger, mixed ownership landscapes. It also means the natural resource management disciplines must find ways to integrate concepts and approaches. Ecosystem management is a way to address these challenges. But what is ecosystem management?


Jonathan B. Haufler

Ecosystem Management Ecosystem management can be defined simply as an approach to natural

resource management that integra~es ecological, social and economic objectivesthis is a standard definition of the term. The key to this definition is in also defining the objectives that ecosystem management attempts to integrate. The ecological objectives that must be addressed are the maintenance or enhancement of ecosystem integrity and biological diversity. Biodiversity refers to the ~ariety of life and life processes and includes the levels of landscape, community, species, and genetics. Ecosystem integrity is a related term that addresses the ecological processes essential for ecosystems to function. Economic objectives focus on maintaining or enhancing the natural resource-based economies associated with a planning landscape. Social objectives include a whole suite of demands, ranging from aesthetic to recreational to spiritual values of society. Successful ecosystem management is exemplified by initiatives that produce maximum integration of these three potentially opposing objectives.

This definition is not new or different. Yet ecosystem management is a term that has been butchered in usage and application. Many individuals and agencies have used it synonymously with two related, but very different terms: ecosystem approach and ecosystem-based management. These terms have been used to describe everything from planning for two or more species at the same time, to making decisions for more than one stand or stream reach at the same time. These is nothing wrong with these activities. However, management that fails to address the full attainment of biological diversity and ecosystem integrity, or fails to fully integrate the economic and social objectives, should not be labeled ecosystem management.

Strategies for Meeting Ecological Objectives

24

The dichotomy of societal views discussed previously .has led to a number of different proposals for meeting the various objectives of ecosystem management, particularly the ecological objectives of conserving biodiversity and ecosystem integrity. As noted by Cortner and Moote (1999) :

Ecosystem management paradoxically advocates preserving ecosystems, or some aspects of ecosystems, from human use, even while acknowledging a human need- and right- to use them . .. . The tension between preserving ecosystem values and also providing opportunities for ecosystem use can be seen in the hostile standoffs between land managers "protecting" public lands and special interests desiring greater access to "our" public resources. It is evident in the polarized stance of environmentalists, who lobby for more wilderness designations, and the growing "Wise Use" movement, which advocates human use and development of publicly-owned resources.



The science of conservation of biological diversity and ecosystem integrity is relatively new, and the strategies proposed have ranged from an emphasis ori preservation to an emphasis on active management. Some strategies for the conservation of biological diversity and ecosystem integrity were designed specifically to meet these ecological objectives, but not to integrate the additional social and economic objectives of ecosystem management. For example, the historical range of variability strategy stems from the philosophical basis that historical disturbance regimes provided the conditions that support biological diversity and ecosystem integrity. Based on this, ecological objectives can be met if management activities strive to maintain conditions within this historical range of variability at all levels of biological diversity. While this approach has a good scientific foundation for meeting ecological objectives, it fails as a strategy for ecosystem management because it does not allow for integration of social and economic objectives.

The bioreserve strategy, such as advocated by the Wildlands project or through Gap analysis, has as an underlying philosophy that because humans have caused declines in biological diversity, the best approach to conserve biodiversity is to exclude human activities from core bioreserve areas that are also buffered from more intensive human activities. In this way, the strategy focuses management activities on zoning levels of human activity across a landscape and on protection categories of land.

In contrast, coarse-filter strategies strive to provide an appropriate mix of ecological communities to meet the ecological objectives in the landscape, regardless of whether or not these communities are located in protected areas. The philosophy behind this strategy is that the appropriate mix of ecol9gical communities within a landscape will maintain biological diversity and ecosystem integrity. Various types of coarse-filter strategies have been proposed, including habitat diversity approaches such as Oliver's landscape ecosystem management or Thomas's approach to management of the Blue Mountains in Oregon and Washington, and the historical range of variability-based approach. The latter strives to maintain a landscape with the mix of ecological communities prod1,1ced by historical disturbance regimes. In this way, it is similar to the historical range of variability strategy, except that the goal is representation of ecological communities, not a return to or maintenance of historical conditions at all levels of biological diversity.

Fine-filter, or species-based, strategies are based on the philosophy that species are the building blocks of biological diversity: If all species are maintained, biological diversity will be maintained. Various approaches have been developed for fine-filter strategies, including various ways of aggregating species' needs, such as the use of guilds, life forms, focal species, ecological indicator species, umbrella species, etc. From the legal perspective of the Endangered Species Act, a species focus is important. The problem with any fine-filter approach is, how to account for the needs of all species occurring within a landscape. All such approaches have been questioned for failing to account for all species. For example, the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project (Quigley and others 1996) estimated that some 31,700 terrestrial species existed for its 145-million acre planning landscape, demonstrating the complexity of a fine-filter strategy.


Jonathan B. Haufler

These strategies for meeting the ecological objectives are not mutually exclusive. Many land management efforts incorporate components of several strategies . However, to effectively implement ecosystem management, the philosophical basis and application of the strategy for meeting the ecological objectives must be clearly articulated. Failure to adequately identify a coherent strategy leaves many attempts at ecosystem management in a confused and often combative state. For example, if some stakeholders in an ecosystem management initiative focus on the protection status of various areas of land, and other stakeholders are looking specifically at the functional ecology of the ecological communities in an area, they may be seeking the same actual ecological endpoint while arguing intensively about how to obtain these desired conditions.

An Ecosystem Management Example

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Ecosystem management requires a strategy that addresses the ecological objectives of conserving biological diversity and ecosystem integrity while facilitating the integration of economic and social objectives into an operational framework. I am an advocate of a coarse-filter strategy that uses a historical range of variability-based approach. Historical range of variability is used as a reference point because of the scientific underpinnings that it provides to the coarse-filter strategy. However, this approach does not set the historical range of variability as the goal, but uses it to define a coarse filter of ecological communities that occurred under historical disturbance regimes and then provides for a representative mix of communities. Identifying representation of communities as the ecological objective allows integration of the economic and social objectives. Because representation of communities also requires the ability to evaluate its proper function, the coarse-filter approach is checked with a species assessment.

We have identified a 1 0-step process to implement this coarse-filter approach with a species assessment (Haufler and others 1996). The process involves delineating the planning landscape and then delineating the coarse filter for this landscape. We have used a tool termed an ecosystem diversity matrix (EDM) to facilitate classification of the coarse filter. The landscape is mapped according to the classification of the coarse filter, for its existing conditions. The EDM also provides a basis for quantifying historical disturbance regimes at a landscape level, resulting in the historical range of variability EDM. Based on this historical range of variability EDM, an adequate representation of ecological communities is determined and quantified. This is then checked with a habitat-based species viability assessment for selected species that represent a range of coarse-filter conditions. Social and economic concerns for the landscape are also identified and integrated with the mix of ecological communities needed for adequate ecological representation to determine the desired future conditions. Comparison to existing conditions identifies where changes are needed and actions required. This whole process should be monitored, evaluated and adjustments made as new information or needs are identified.



This process was applied in a partnership for an ecosystem management demonstration led by Boise Cascade Corporation in Idaho. The partners included the U.S. Forest Service, Idaho Department of Lands, Idaho Fish and Game, the University of Idaho, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Nature Conservancy and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. The planning landscape was identified as the southern Idaho Batholith, an area of approximately 5. 7 million acres. The complete coarse filter for this landscape required the development of four different ecosystem diversity matrices: forested systems, grassland/shrub systems, riparian/wetland systems, and aquatic systems. The project primarily focused on the forest systems EDM, although it also developed the riparian/wetland systems EDM and identified a framework for the aquatic systems EDM. Only the forest systems EDM will be discussed further here.

The EDM identifies the different ecological sites within the landscape that historically supported the various types of forest communities. In this landscape, habitat typing, as defined by Daubenmire (1968) on the basis of potential natural vegetation, was used to describe the complex of ecological sites, with each site characterized as a habitat type class. The different ecological sites comprise the columns of the EDM. Each habitat type class, or column, was described relative to its successional trajectory in response to historical disturbance regimes and characterized in the EDM by vegetation growth stages. For the Southern Idaho Batholith Landscape, these successional trajectories were developed around fire regimes, as they were the primary disturbance factors withrn this landscape. In this way, temporal dynamics of the landscape were described. The existing conditions of the landscape, in terms of the classification of the forest systems EDM, were mapped with a combination of modeled distributions of the habitat type classes and vegetation growth stages determined from Landsat imagery. The cells of the matrix, termed ecological units, were then quantified according to their amounts within the landscape.

Historical disturbance regimes were modeled for each habitat type class of the matrix, and the historical range of variability was estimated for the amounts of each ecological unit within a habitat type class using a vegetation dynamics model (VDDT). This allowed development of the historical range of variability EDM. We then developed a hypothesized estimate of what would provide adequate ecological representation of the historically occurring coarse filter. Haufler and others (1996, 1999, 2000) provide further descriptions of this project. Species assessment of the adequacy of the hypothesized level of representation is an ongoing activity, following the methods described by Roloff and Haufler (1997).

An additional and important point is the need to quantify the requirements for the ecological objectives. The ecological objectives of ecosystem managementthose of conserving biological diversity and ecosystem integrity- are objectives that natural resource managers should meet. In other words, we can't say that maintaining 75% of the biological diversity of a landscape is adequate if it is "integrated" with social and economic objectives. To meet these ecological objectives, and to maintain ecological sustainability, we must strive to conserve all biological diversity, as well as ecosystem integrity. This means that the threshold levels required to meet these objectives must be identified and maintained.


Jonathan B. Haufler

Desired conditions of landscapes should maintain most ecological conditions above these threshold levels, but the thresholds should be quantitatively identified. The social and economic objectives can be integrated, along with additional desired levels of ecological conditions.

This quantification is necessary for several reasons. First, implying that more is better, and countering all proposals for social or economic use of landscapes, is not ecosystem management, and it is not conducive to collaboratioR or partnerships. It only breeds distrust and encourages legal or political alternatives to collaboration. Second, if private landowners are to feel comfortable in collaborative efforts, they need to be presented with clear, scientifically based thresholds for ecological conditions that they can understand and endorse, rather than what they may legitimately perceive as an open-ended effort to control their land uses.

Lessons Learned

28

This project, as well as two similar projects in Washington and Minnesota, has shown that the tools and knowledge exist to implement ecosystem management. However, we have also learned that implementation of ecosystem management is not a quick solution. To properly characterize a landscape in terms of a coarse filter requires fine-scale classification, information and mapping. We emphasize the need to accurately characterize and map the various ecological sites of the landscape, based on the abiotic drivers of greatest importance. For Idaho, we found that elevation, slope, aspect and other topographical information could be used to characterize and delineate ecological sites according to their habitat type classes. In other landscapes, geology and soils will play a major role, as we found in Minnesota. Properly characterizing and delineating ecological sites at a fine scale would be an appropriate investment for any landscape planning and management efforts. These data would be a fixed feature of the landscape and, once gathered and interpreted, a continually valuable set of information. Similarly, characterizing historical disturbance regimes in the delineated ecological sites would provide important reference information for landscape analysis and planning.

Characterizing and mapping existing conditions of the landscape is needed information. However, existing conditions are very dynamic, and information gathered today will be of marginal utility in 5 to 10 years. Unfortunately, many landscape assessments spend much of their resources on characterizing e~isting conditions rather than properly defining coarse filters, delineating ecological sites and characterizing historical disturbance regimes. Much of the information on existing conditions is out of date by the time the landscape assessment is completed and available. Thus, while characterization of existing conditions is needed, it should not absorb large amounts of the budget of an ecosystem management initiative, at the expense of properly characterizing a coarse filter, delineating ecological sites or characterizing historical disturbance regimes.

Partnerships or collaborative efforts are important tools for effective implementation of ecosystem management. Such partnerships are best built from the local level and then expanded to include regional or national interests. Efforts by



local governments or private landowners hold great promise, especially when these efforts reach out to include local conservation groups from the onset. Such efforts can avoid the distrust of private landowners toward efforts led by federal or state agencies. For these partnership or collaborative efforts to be successful, they need support in the form of funding, technical assistance, including GIS capabilities, and data. Sources of funding, such as government or foundation grants, as well as technfcal support from agencies or institutes, can play a critical role in the success of such initiatives.

Thus, ecosystem management, especially when used in a partnership or collaborative effort, offers one of the best short-term opportunities for conserving biological diversity and ecosystem integrity while meeting society's demands for commodities and other ecosystem uses. The longer-term solutions must address human population growth and consumption of natural resources. However, until U.S. society begins to recognize the dichotomy of its views on consumption versus environmental protection, changing human growth rates or consumption rates will be difficult.

UTERATURE CITED

Cinnamon, S. K. , N. C. Johnson, G. Super, J. Nelson, and D. Loomis. 1999. Shifting human use and expected demands on natural resources. Pages 327-343 in: W. T. Sexton, A. J. Malk, R. C. Szaro, and N. C. Johnson, editors. Ecological stewardship: a common reference for ecosystem management. Elsevier Science, Oxford, UK.Cortner, H. J., and M.A. Moote. 1999. The politics of ecosystem management. Island Press, Washington, D.C., USA.

Daubenmire, R.F. 1968. Plant communities: a textbook of plant syecology. Harper and Row, New York, New York.

Haufler, J.B., C.A. Mehl, and G.J. Roloff. 1996. Using a coarse-filter approach with species assessment for ecosystem management. Wildlife Society Bulletin 24:200-208.

Haufler, J. B., C. A. Mehl, and G. J. Roloff. 1999. Conserving biological diversity using a coarse filter approach with a species assessment. Pages 107-16 in: R. K. Baydack, H. Campa, III , and J. B. Haufler, editors. Practical approaches to the conservation of biological diversity. Island Press, Washington, D.C.

Haufler, J. B., C. A. Mehl, and G. J. Roloff. 2000. A process for ecosystem management at a landscape scale. Pages 162-170 in: R. G. D'Eon, J. F. Johnson, and E. A. Ferguson, editors. Ecosystem management of forested landscapes; directions and implementation. UBC Press. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

MacCleery, D. W., and D. C. LeMaster. 1999. The historical foundation and the evolving context for natural resource management on federal lands . Pages 517-556 in: W. T. Sexton, A. J. Malk, R. C. Szaro, and N. C. Johnson, editors. Ecological stewardship: a common reference for ecosystem management. Elsevier Science, Oxford, UK.

Quigley, T. M. , R. W. Haynes, and R. T. Graham. 1996. An integrated scientific assessment for the ecosystem management in the Interior Columbia Basin and portions of the Klamath and Great Basins. USDA Forest Service. General Technical Report PNW-GTR-382. U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, Portland, OR, USA.

Roloff, G.J., and J.B. Haufler. 1997. Establishing population viability planning objectives based on habitat

potentials. Wildlife Society Bulletin 25:895-904.


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