(c) 1998 by Peter Berck 1

Why are the Uses Multiple

By Peter BerckUniversity of California,Berkeley

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Goals

This is the story of shifting goals and the effect they have on multiple use planning.

Planning history in PNWPolitics and PlanningImplications for planning

Stochastic Mapping

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Multiple Use is Unavoidable

Water quantity insensitive to management but quality can be affected by management

Recreationalists can’t be excluded but can be encouraged with facilities

Wildlife lives there anyway but clearcuts favor game; no cuts favor owls

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Multiple Use: Which Use Shall Be Master

American Politics drives multiple use management in the forests of the West.

There are three distinct political and management regimes: Pre, During, and Post Owl

Management tools adapt to the politicsManagement plans adapt to the politics:

Does the planner matter?

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Postwar and Pre-Owl

Political agreement on timberInformal tools--discretion

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Planning: Old Style

Planner professional

forester knowledge of

resource

Owner preferences over

uses supplies capital

Planning job determine

preferences determine budget find best plan among

feasible plans easily amenable to

programming formulation, but there was no need to do so!

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The Catch

The catch was that there needed to be an owner. A close substitute would be wide consensus on the appropriate goals and a political willingness to let the planner determine the goals within that consensus.

Before ~1970, management of the Forests was not so contentious.

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Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960

Multiple Uses recreation range timber watershed wildlife fish

(later wilderness is added)

No one use is to predominate

“High level annual … output

without impairment of the productivity of the land”

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Agency Freedom

The USFS had ample latitude to operate forests as it wished under MUSY of 1960.

The act codified what USFS was doing anyway.

The Agency was trusted and political consensus was pretty high.

This was easy because there were substantial areas untouched by cutting.

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Old Stated Objectives

Community Stability: JOBS coincident with mill

profits

Supply of Fiber (that’s wood)

Recreation Game and Fish Scenic Drives Hiking

Went together: More wood is more

jobs is more open forest is more game

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Wilderness Act (1964)

FS had designated wilderness on its own and was now constrained by law on those areas.

Forced to study additional lands for inclusion.

Large single purpose reserves went against the Multiple Use grain.

The Planner would not decide which lands to reserve

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Politics and Formalized Planning

Oddly played out through acts thought to innocuous or planning acts National Environmental Policy Act Endangered Species Act Resource Planning Act

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NEPA

Before a major federal action can be taken, the agency must Get public comment on issues to be

consideredMake a plan (Environmental Impact

Statement) and several alternative plansGet public comment on the plansChoose a preferred alternative

This was not thought to be radical legislation.

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Resource Planning Act (‘74)

Resource assessment at the National level

Targets for Regions and ForestsPlans to meet those targetsThis act was a way for the FS to get

long term agreement by Congress on goals and for the Industry to get a clear mandate to produce wood.

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RPA Didn’t work

Environmentalists wanted more wildland than the FS was planning for.

Monongahela Decision: Resurrected language in 100 year old law that made it necessary to consider each tree before cutting.

Clear need for new legislation

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National Forest Management Act (1976)

Political compromise Non-declining flow

meant to preserve oldgrowthwould only delay cut out

CMAImeant to put teeth into sustained yieldecologically meaningless: trees still too

small

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Endangered Species Act

Can’t take animal, even on private land Take includes remove habitat Must list habitat to be protected Leads to legal question: when does

regulation become confiscation of property?Current answer is when no economic use

possible

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Participation

RPA Interdisciplinary Teams (Regs. Restored

supervisors power) Public comment Full written disclosure to public

ESA Public right to sue to protect animals

Public could see and could sue

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Formal Planning

Under NFMA and RPA, formal planning for multiple use was carried out by linear programming.

The basic idea was to maximize present value of timber, subject to CMAI, non-declining flow, and other constraints.

The Spotted Owl became the most celebrated constraint

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SimpleForest Planning

Type of Site, jMany “birthdays”hj(t,s)

t is calendar time s is birthday of stand h is acres harvested

Dj(t-s) is volume per acre

v(t) is cut at tv=j s Dj(t-s) hj(t,

s)Max present value

of P times V

s.t. biologyv(t+1) v(t)t-s > CMAI or h = 0

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Biology

Initial Acres = Cut over all time Aj(s) = t hj(t,s)

W is what is left standing wj(s,t) = Aj(s) - t hj(t,s)

or =s hj(t,s) - a hj(a,t)

Cut acres regrow and are recut s hj(t,s) = a hj(a,t)

This is Johnson and Scheurman, Model II.

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More meaning to the model

Types of sites, j different species site classes critical locations

near streamsvisual buffers

More Constraints Don’t cut type j Keep N% of forest

at age, t-s, > 100constraint on w

More treatments commercial thin pre-commercial

thin

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Traditional Problems with Planning

Find the Cut Plans were not

spatial Foresters still had to

designate specific parcels to be cut

Hard to see cumulative effect of decisions because of mapping technology

The problem (Hrubes) The cuttable land base

was much smaller than the planned land base because of streams, Indian burial grounds, needed habitat, etc.

Difference only discovered when “finding the cut”

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Allowable Cut Effect

To get nondeclining flow cut oldgrowth now plan to cut

unprofitable trees later When later comes,

make new plan and don’t cut remote trees

Thus cut declines under non-declining constraint.

Industry likes this. They get more wood

Environmentalists hate this. They see oldgrowth cut down sooner.

It is an example of “no commitment”

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Forest Plans Took Forever

Not innocent: Old plans used while waiting. Once it was clear that the plans would

call for less timber, industry and Republican administration did not want plans to be final

Environmentalists obliged by obstructing plans for their goals.

(graphic on how much plans did to cut)

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Semi-primitive

WILD AND SCENIC RIVER

RECREATION AREA

Visual retention

Private Land

Timber emphasis

Bald eagle habitat

Goshawk habitat

Spotted owl habitat

Partial Visual ret.

Minimal management

Owl Lead-up

FS released draft EIS on owl in August of 1986, 5% cut reduction

Final EIS April 1988, little less than 5% ASQ reduction

But, this wasn’t enough to comply with the law to protect the Owl, which wasn’t even yet officially “threatened”

http://www.sweet-home.or.us/forest/owl/index.html

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Injunction

March, 1989. Order restraining the FS from offering 139 planned sales.

Yaffee (Wisdom of the Spotted Owl) takes this as the pivotal action There was a FS owl plan before this

Point at which the Owl became primary

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Listing of the Owl

June 1989, proposed listing of Owl as threatened in Fed. Register

June 1990 listed, but no critical habitat

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Congress in the Act

No stranger control Non-sustainable

ASQ as far back as Carter

1984 BailoutBecause of inflation,

companies bid too much for timber; Congress released them from their contracts withou full penalties.

Hatfield-Adams1989. Prescribed the

sale for (fiscal)‘89-’909.6 billion bd ftstreamlined appeals--

SEIS not subject to judicial

no temp restrain or prelim injunct on fisc ‘90 timber sales

deadlines for judicial review; special masters

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Interagency Scientific Committee

Future Chief Thomas, a biologist and others

April 4 1990 Reduce harvest levels in owl area by 30-

40%

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Listing of Habitat May ‘91

Fish and Wildlife complies with ESA (finally) Takes ISC report and enshrines it in law critical habitat 11.6 million acres of which 3 million were private

Small administration counterattack 1992 G_d Squad exempts small number

of sales for BLM

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FEMAT: Option 9

“ecosystem management plan,” holistic, adaptive

Option 9 is response to summit in april ‘93Timber: year 1, 2 b bdf; then 1.7 b bdf then

decline to near 1 billion in the long run so it averaged to 1.2 b bdf over 10 years.

About 90% reduction from the all time highs

adaptive managementlocal communities and agencies

still protects owls

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Presidents Forest Plan

Is Option 9Less timberMore attention to “ecosystem”Replaces the planner: Jack Ward Thomas

and now Mike DombeckReplacing the planning process: No more

ForplanMaybe no role for programmingGIS is in.

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Congress Sets Cut Directly (again)

Salvage Ride (good for two years)rResponse to destructive firesResponse to declining cut

Under the logging provision, the U.S. Forest Service is directed to double the cutting of dead and dying trees in national forests over the next 18 months. The agency would be virtually unhindered by the Endangered Species Act and other laws protecting wildlife, and timber sales would be exempt from court challenge. (Bee, JULY 27, 1995)

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Murrelets

The marbled murrelet was listed as threatened on October 1, 1992

It nests in older redwood trees.Various species of trout and salmon

are also listed as endangered.Endangered species also live on

private land.

The Murrelet lives inthe valuable timber. ESAprohibits cutting. A Dealfor Headwaters in thethe works.

Map Copyright © 1998 California Resources Agency. All rights reserved.

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Headwaters Deal

US and State to buy Headwaters for $250 m (fed) + $130 m (state)

Agree to Habitat Conservation Plan for rest of PL’s holdings.

Does the HCP enable of hinder PL? Headwaters sold for less than market Environmentalist complaint about

Salmon habitat continues

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Stakeholder Processes

Get the interested parties into room Bargaining in shadow of the law

ESAPolitical power

Clausowitz: War is the continuation of politics by other means

Republicans and Environmentalists ascendant at same time

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Quincy Library Group

Locals (Jobs/Timber/Fire) try to get Congress to accept their view over

National Conservation Organizations (Animals/Oldgrowth)

in planning for N. Sierra Forests Big Issue is condition: Locals want

thinning to reduce fire risk Is an “adaptive management”

experiment

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Making Sense of the Record

Explain the outcome with Political Economy

Find the implications for Planning

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New Emphasis on Stock

Agency and AdministrationProtect Wildlife per se (stock): owls

and FishFire (stock): reduce hazard for wood

and for communitiesCreate “healthy,” “natural,” or

“diverse” forest (stock) get back to pre-european conditions

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Counterpoint

Republican and CongressionalJOBS (flow)Timber (flow)But, Jobs makes much better politics

than timber.

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JOBS

Does timber produce Jobs? Jobs per bd ft, but can only cut once Not constant: factor demand (Sullivan) Not constant over time: technical progress

Indirect jobs? IMPLAN I/O work says yes Stewart says little: transfer payments as

basic Regression says no

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An Economist makes Sense of Politics

A GameMedian VoterMoney and VotesPolitical Business Cycle

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Environmentalists and Timber Beast

Timber Beast R = argmaxR V(T(R) ,r+E)where R is rotation age; T is timber quantityr is interest rate and E is chance of

expropriation by regulation

Environmentalist lobbies for reservations of timber, E = argmax U(E,R, c(E))where c(E) is the cost of achieving E

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continued

In this framework there are two reasons for the environmentalist to exercise restraint in his lobbying: cost and the adverse effect on current management (R).

Chris Costello, unpublished 1998.

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Median Voter (Shalit)

Assuming that preferences are single peaked in commodity/amenity space and that voters decide the allocation between these uses, Shalit (unpublished 1976) uses the median voter theorem to find the actual allocation. He notes that the outcome is not pareto optimal and shows how side payments can be used to achieve a PO.

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Money and Votes (Peltzman, 1976)

Timber Beast wants gov’t to cut timber. Cutting unpopular with voters.

Timber Beast donates money for political campaigns.

Voters respond to campaigns Beast gives politicians enough money to

overcome voter dislike of cutting.

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Political Business Cycle (Ken Rogoff)

Presidents last only four years till re-election. That gives them a short time horizon and induces a political business cycle. Take the downturn at the beginning of term so that the recovery will be well underway by re-election. The Senator from Washington (and Idaho) needs rural votes. Shift timber harvest to the present to buy votes even if there is a severe restructuring later President’s plan starts high and ends low.

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Simple Stochastic View

Goals for timber, owls TG, OG

V = min E t (T- TG)2 + b(O - OG)2 (1+r)-t

r is interest rate b is price of owls relative to timber s.t. biology, other constraints as before Clinton’s selection of Option 9:

TG = 1.2 billion, long run; OG high.

Recent History: a shift in the goals

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Two period Stochastic

V = min .5 {(T1-TG)2 + E b(O2 - OG2)2 (1+r)-1}

s.t. O2 = (O1 - T1) + OG

2 = OG1 +

GG TOOr

b

br

rT 11121 11

1*

)(

11

2

1*

11

2*12

1 Varr

bOTO

r

bTTV GG

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Stochastic Lessons

The randomness in goals contributes to an increase in regret in the same way that randomness in the biological processes do.

With a vacillation in goals from 1 to 10 billion bd ft., goal uncertainty could be more costly than biological uncertainty.

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Stochastic: The “simple”

Fire stochastically assigns acres to new “birthdays” (Johnson et al in SNEP) without harvest

Trees don’t always go to the one year older age class

Relation between Owls O and Habitat W has random element and unknown parameter

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Stochastic: The Horror

The Goals GO and GT change with the political winds. In a linear quadratic system, the control

variables would be linear in the targets GO and GT and the state variables. Thus the control variables would exhibit the same sort of random fluctuation as the targets.

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Implications for Planning

The planning exercise will be done and redone. No commitment to carrying out the plans. Shift (for a while) with the political winds.

old-growth dependent species on a one way trip. Once the habitat goes, no later plan can bring it back. They will lose out a piece at a time.

The Planner will look like a fool.

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Forward and Backward

The Biologist rules the roost. They will plan with mapping tools to get the forest condition that they want.

They will do it “by eye”An optimization will be after the fact

and only on lands they do not consider important.

GIS will drive LP and not vice versa.