national forest planning and nfma requirements
DESCRIPTION
An evaluation of potential impacts of 2005 Planning Rule on forest planning and models.TRANSCRIPT
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National Forest Planning and NFMA Requirements
Karl R. Walters
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Purpose of Study
• Forest Service recently released new planning rules– What do these changes in the rules mean?– Will the changes make a difference?– What are the implications for modelers?
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Why is this important?
• National Forest Planning bogged down– Time and expense has become exorbitant– Revisions required every 10-15yrs– On some forests, taking almost that long
• New rules to reduce time to develop plans– Less litigation, more implementation– Focus on sustainable forest management– Forest health is a major goal
• NFMA (1976) and NPLMA (1976)– Multiple use-sustained yield concept still applies
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Why is this important?
What if the Forest Plan isn’t implemented?• Harvests are significantly lower than
allowable across most Regions• Catastrophic insect & fire damage common
– Fire suppression costs increasing yearly
Do more with less• Increased mandates (fire protection on non-
Federal land) • Budgets are being cut, not increased
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Highlights of the New Rule
• Planning framed in EMS (ISO 14001)– Provides standards for management process, reporting,
etc, across NFS
• Streamlined planning– 2-3 yr process– More internalized evaluation of alternatives– Public comment on the proposed plan rather than a
variety of alternatives
• Allowable sale quantity– Still subject to LTSY constraints– Viewed as an upper bound only on timber sales
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Implications
• Auditing for compliance– EMS requires regular measurement of actions against
the plan– Need to do what you say you’re going to do
• Sustained yield – sustainable management– Which is it? NFMA requirements at odds
• Planning models– Smaller, simpler models to determine capacities,
interactions, etc– Spatially explicit to consider smaller scale effects– One final, detailed model for public comment
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Contrived Planning Problem
• ~ 300,000 ac• Ponderosa pine dominated landscape• Major concerns
– Forest fires, mountain pine beetle– Maintaining historical range of variability
• More dispersed age classes• Greater presence of aspen and hardwoods
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Example Forest - Covertype
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Example Forest – Age distribution
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Example Forest – Inholdings
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Example Forest – Age Class Distribution
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Current Conditions – Fire Risk
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Current Conditions – Structural Stage
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The Model
• Goal programming formulation– Minimize deviations from goals
• 75% of area in wildland urban interface and 1 mile buffer in low or low-moderate fire hazard rating
• Maintain proportions of structural stages within key management areas
• Perform minimum acres of aspen and oak restoration
• Maintain minimum habitat acres in critical management area
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Base Run Results
Total Sale Program Quantity• Subject to
– Nondeclining yield (NDY)– LTSYC-NDY link– Perpetual timber harvest
constraint
Forest inventory• Generally increasesGoal achievement• Generally under-achieve
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Current Conditions – Structural Stage
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DFC (Planned) – Structural Stage
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Current Conditions – Fire Risk
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DFC (Planned) – Fire Risk
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Current Conditions – Structural Stage
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DFC (Planned) – Structural Stage
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DFC (Implemented) – Structural Stage
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Current Conditions – Fire Risk
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DFC (Planned) – Fire Risk
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DFC (Implemented) – Fire Risk
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Is Sustainable Yield Sustainable?
• NFMA requires– Sale quantity < long-term sustained yield– Departures from NDY ok if consistent with
multiple-use– New rule makes ASQ an upper bound only
• But what if forest health suffers because of NFMA requirements?– Luckert & Williamson (2005) question SY in the
context of Sustainable Forest Management
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No NFMA constraints
Sale Quantity• Large variationsInventory• Marginal decrease
relative to BaseGoal achievement• Better achievement• Higher forage
production
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DFC (Base) – Structural Stage
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DFC (No NFMA) – Structural Stage
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DFC (Planned) – Fire Risk
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DFC (No NFMA) – Fire Risk
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Model Attributes
• Example is a typical monolithic model– Model II formulation– 13 landscape themes
• 42 trillion potential development types• 2055 defined at start
– 42 yield components– Goal programming formulation
• Goals used because constraint set infeasible• Constraints specified in isolation with no testing for
compatibility or feasibility
– Big and slow
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Discussion
• Backlog of NF’s requiring Plan revisions– Litigation has hampered
• Development of plans• Implementation of plans
• New rule implies a disconnect between harvests and other outputs (ASQ = ceiling)– Cannot use silviculture to achieve vegetation
management goals if you don’t implement it– With reduced budgets, how will vegetation
management be funded without a timber program?– SAF advocates use of silviculture on NF’s
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Discussion
• Sustained yield and sustainable forest management seem to be at odds– Timber production facilitates improving
forest structure but is limited by SY laws– Non-timber benefits require vegetation
management and silviculture is best option– Ability to improve forest conditions is
hampered
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Discussion
• Large scale models to address multiple goals often don’t work well– Complex and hard to interpret– Constraints and objectives are often
conflicting • Developed in isolation from each other
• Yields/prescriptions often out-of-sync with overall objectives– Using treatments developed to produce
timber to effect fire risk reduction
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Discussion
• Use multiple small models to look at issues– Determine which objectives conflict and
which ones complement– Focus on real trade-offs– Determine reasonable range of values
• Finally, create a smaller, tightly focused model representing a single alternative
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