Open range riding in national forests may be over
Dale Bosworth, head of the U.S. Forest Service, sat
down with The Idaho Statesman editorial board to talk
about the threats facing national forests and the new
Healthy Forests Initiative.
Here are some highlights.
Bosworth: "When I read some of the national newspapers, you would think the Forest Service is all about timber harvest and road building. ... The wars and battles have been fought and won or lost. ...Today we´re cutting about 2 billion board feet of timber, we have been for the last four or five years. Fifteen years ago, we were selling about 11 1/2 or 12 million board feet of timber, so it´s a significant difference. ...
"From a road-building standpoint, in the last five years, we´ve eliminated somewhere in the vicinity of 10,000 miles of road. ... During that same period of time we´ve built 800 or 900 miles of road, something like that. So the road system´s getting smaller, and it should. ...
"We´re missing some really important things, and those real important threats that are out there. I´ve kind of come to the conclusion that there´s four major things that people ought to be worrying and thinking about.
"Of course, the first one, everybody knows about, which is the natural accumulation of fuels. ... Our job is the restoration of these fire-dependent ecosystems. …
"The second (threat) is invasive species. And it´s a difficult one, because it´s slower-moving and it doesn´t have a lot of pizzazz on the evening news. But the invasive species I´m talking about are insects and diseases and plants that came from somewhere else and they don´t have natural enemies here and so they pretty much take over. ... We have this problem, but we´re getting new insects and diseases and weeds all the time. ...
"The third threat, in my view, has to do with the loss of open space. In the West, it´s generally like some of the ranches that for one reason or another go out of business and they subdivide into ranchettes and condominiums. ... What I´m concerned about is that we in the Forest Service aren´t doing things ... that help push (ranches) toward ending up being subdivided. ...
"Our job is to make sure, if we´re going to graze on national forests, it´s being done right and we´re not damaging the environment. ... If we had some problems, I´d like to find some more creative solutions to those problems, rather than just pushing people off … That´s a lose-lose, from my standpoint. ... I tell people that the worst-managed ranch is still better wildlife habitat than the best-planned subdivision.
"The fourth threat, in my view, I refer to it as unmanaged outdoor recreation. Mainly what I´m thinking about right now is off-highway vehicles. ... My belief is the day that we can take off-highway vehicles across the national forest, across country, wherever you want, is over. Motorized vehicles need to be limited to designated roads and trails or areas."
Statesman: What about old logging roads?
Bosworth: "If they´re specifically designated."
Statesman: A lot of people in Idaho love those old logging roads, for access to cross-country ski. ... But then, what about snowmobiles and ATVs?
Bosworth: "I´m talking about ATVs, off-highway vehicles more so than snowmobiles on this. Snowmobiling is a big issue, but the difference there is, when the snow melts ..."
Statesman: Their tracks are gone?
Bosworth: "That´s true. The effect of snowmobiles is primarily user conflicts and wildlife effects . ... I´m not trying to minimize those, but those are just different than the effect you have with ATVs, when you have several ATVs go across the same place, pretty soon you´ve created a new road."
Statesman: The days where snowmobiles can´t go off
road isn´t here yet?
Bosworth: "We´re going to need to deal with snowmobiles at some point, but I don´t have that sense of urgency, myself, regarding snowmobiles."
Statesman: Where do you start managing this?
Bosworth: "What we´re trying to do is look at what should our policy be nationally. I don´t want us to sit in Washington, D.C., and decide what roads and trails are going to be left open. ..."We´re working on trying to figure out how the best way is, and how the best way is to bring people to the table, from both sides, and in a civil way, try to figure out what kind of system would be OK. ... It´s not going to do any good to have whoever´s strongest wins, and everybody else loses."
Statesman: Of the four, only the fuels issue is on the national radar. How do you get the other three on the radar screen?
Bosworth: "I´m trying to do that, by talking to folks like you. ... I´ve been talking to lots of different groups and organizations and newspapers. We´ve gotten a lot of coverage in newspapers in the East, a lot of coverage in some of the West. All I want to do is for
people to be thinking about it. …"But it´s not going to be the same as people that watch the news and see the fires. I mean, when you see that really sticks with people… Watching a weed grow on TV, it just doesn´t capture people´s hearts and minds. ...
"(But) just stopping the spread (of weeds) is amazing, when you look at how much is going on. And then maybe we can recover some areas. And then we also need to have ways of quickly jumping on new species that come in. ... It´s sort of like fires, if you can put the fire out at a quarter-acre, you´re a whole lot better off than waiting till you´ve got a hundred thousand acres. It´s the same thing with insects and diseases."
Statesman: On the fire issue, the last time you talked to us, you blamed analysis paralysis as a reason the Forest Service can´t get anything done. Do you now have the tools to solve your problems?
Bosworth: "I believe we´ve got the tools to start making big advances. There´s a couple things about the Healthy Forests Restoration Act that I think are important. First there´s tools in there that are going to help us, and there´s no question about that. ... The symbolism of it is important too. The fact that Democrats and Republicans, it was bipartisan, conservation organizations, some environmental groups, industry folks, community leaders, worked together and ended up supporting something. To me, what they´re saying is, there´s a recognition, a common recognition that we have a problem, and recognition that we need to do something about it. ...
"We´re working right now at developing the implementation and training and all that. I want to have people in the Forest Service trained by the end of February. I want us going....
"Now the real challenge is (to have) our people implement this and we do it in a way that engages the public, better than what we have in the past. ... What this does, it gives our folks an even better opportunity to spend more time out on the ground and to spend more time with people at the very beginning. ... What I want our people to do is I want us to go where the people want us. If a community says they don´t want us there doing that work, you know, if they don´t want us doing that thing next to their town, let´s go somewhere else, because there´s plenty of people that do. And I´m pretty sure that it won´t be long, and they´ll be calling us, saying, ´Yeah, we really do want you guys.´ "
Statesman: This is a 30-year job, at least. Will you be able to look at it in five years and say you´ve made a dent?
Bosworth: "I think we can do it, but I´m not sure tha I would say in five years we´re going to see a big difference. I´d be very disappointed (if), within a 10- or 15-year period, we don´t see fires behaving differently. ...
"We have examples of (success) all around. Five years from now, we´ll have more examples of that. And 10 years from now, that hopefully will become the norm. I don´t want to overpromise on this thing. I´d rather kind of underpromise and overdeliver on this. My hope is and expectation is that, definitely, by 15 years we should (be seeing) significant changes. ...
"In the end, it´s going to be continuing maintenance. You can´t do it once and say, ´OK, we´ve done it, we´re done now.´ What we´re going to need to be doing, is once we get these areas thinned ... we need to get fire back in, through prescribed burning or something. And then it´s going to take, like every 15 or 20 years, we´re going to have to burn it again, or we´ll be right back in the same problem."
http://www.nohvcc.org/newsletter/art5b_2.htm