Forest Service ‘Analysis Paralysis’ (June 14, 2002)

So, you might be asking yourself: ‘7 million acres of national forests burned in the summer of 2002, and I hear another 73 million acres are at high risk from catastrophic wildfire and insect outbreaks, why isn’t anyone doing anything to help prevent these things from happening?’  Okay, maybe you’re not asking yourself that exact question...  But if you had, you would have hit upon the very crux of the debate over how to make our forests healthy again.  The Forest Service and their leadership would indeed like to do something about this situation.  However, according to the Forest Service, they find themselves operating “within a statutory, regulatory, and administrative framework that has kept the agency from effectively addressing rapid declines in forest health.”

So, their hands are tied; by what?  The Forest Service identifies, in a recent report called “The Process Predicament,” three key issues:

1. Excessive analysis—confusion, delays, costs, and risk management associated with the required consultations and studies;

2. Ineffective public involvement—procedural requirements that create disincentives to collaboration in national forest management; and

3. Management inefficiencies—poor planning and decision-making, a deteriorating skills base, and inflexible funding rules, problems that are compounded by the sheer volume of the required paperwork and the associated proliferation of opportunities to misinterpret or misapply required procedures

“These factors frequently place (decision-makers) in a costly procedural quagmire, where a single project can take years to move forward and where planning costs alone can exceed $1 million.  Even non-controversial projects often proceed at a snail’s pace.  Forest Service officials have estimated that planning and assessment consume 40 percent of total direct work at the national forest level.  That would represent an expenditure of more than $250 million per year. Although some planning is obviously necessary, Forest Service officials have estimated that improving administrative procedures could shift up to $100 million a year from unnecessary planning to actual project work to restore ecosystems and deliver services on the ground.”

Clearly, something needs to change when the agency entrusted to care for our public lands is in such a sink-hole of red tape that it can no longer fulfill the responsibilities with which we’ve entrusted it.  Want to read more about the ‘process predicament’?  A full copy of the report can be viewed at the Forest Service web site.