National Forest Planning and NFMA Requirements

Karl R. Walters

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?

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

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

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

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

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

Example Forest - Covertype

Example Forest – Age distribution

Example Forest – Inholdings

Example Forest – Age Class Distribution

Current Conditions – Fire Risk

Current Conditions – Structural Stage

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

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

Current Conditions – Structural Stage

DFC (Planned) – Structural Stage

Current Conditions – Fire Risk

DFC (Planned) – Fire Risk

Current Conditions – Structural Stage

DFC (Planned) – Structural Stage

DFC (Implemented) – Structural Stage

Current Conditions – Fire Risk

DFC (Planned) – Fire Risk

DFC (Implemented) – Fire Risk

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

No NFMA constraints

Sale Quantity• Large variationsInventory• Marginal decrease

relative to BaseGoal achievement• Better achievement• Higher forage

production

DFC (Base) – Structural Stage

DFC (No NFMA) – Structural Stage

DFC (Planned) – Fire Risk

DFC (No NFMA) – Fire Risk

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

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

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

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

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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