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TODAY Monday 9 March 1998 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
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TODAY Monday 9 March 1998 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
TODAY IN THE WORLD: In Search for the Holy Grail of the Forests
Next Thursday, 19 March, the feast of St. Joseph the Carpenter, representatives of the biggest environmental programs in American philanthropy will gather in Washington "to discuss public policy issues in forest management." Thursday will be dedicated to public forests, Friday to the privates.
Sixty-seven professional staffers have been invited by the Forest Working Group of the Consultative Group on Biological Diversity (CGBD, not to be confused with the Lower Manhattan music boite). The CGBD is the funders' club that tries to foment extra smartness about the ways in which its members can save species by making grants; I was an active participant 1990 - 1995. You cannot get philanthropoids to agree on lunch, much less Machiavellian strategies to change American government, but the CGBD meetings are more or less accurate depictions of the range of thinking considered reasonable by the conventional wisdom of the industry.
The big overall question for CGBD members is how human activity can be conducted "sustainably," i.e. without (undue) loss of biodiversity and without (undue) perturbations of natural ecosystems. The difficulty is that humans don't really know how to do much of anything that is truly sustainable in an ecological sense. "Sustainable agriculture" comes the closest, and not really all that close; phrases like "sustainable transportation," "sustainable fisheries" and "sustainable communities" -- all of which you hear at enviro conferences -- are essentially statements of intent and value-declaration, like "democracy" and "liberty."
Is there a replicable something called "sustainable forestry?" Disagreements can be pronounced -- we feature a sharp exchange of views on the subject within the forests portion of our In The Trenches section -- but I think it's fair to say that in the United States we don't have a significant number of large-scale timber operations where a) the landowners make a profit; and b) biodiversity is preserved.
The bias of the CGBD convenors -- and of the current leadership of the United States Forest Service -- is that humans can log sustainably if perverse economic incentives are removed (e.g. subsidization of logging roads in national forests) and if proper cutting practices are instituted. The USFS is getting help from a number of CGBD members to establish models to demonstrate the point. Usually these demonstrations involve the complicity of nearby residents, and so you hear a good deal of reference to "community-based forestry" or "conservation-based development." The most famous example of this kind of approach was the "Quincy Library Group" plan for timber policies in some national forests in the Sierra Nevada region of California ("Who Owns the National Forests?"). Though many of the CGBD members would probably disagree with some of the particulars of the Quincy Group plan, very few would argue that it's not a good idea "to involve the local community."
That's why Tim Hermach is such a blessing. The leader of the Native Forest Council is not afraid to say that "the community" can go to hell. Where are the examples of sustainable forestry?, he asks. Why do the national forests -- which produce maybe 7 percent of the lumber output of the country -- have to be logged at all when there is so much private land? Why don't the CGBD people just skip on to the Friday sessions and figure out how to regulate private cutting and forget about Thursday's oxymoronic search for sustainable forestry on public lands?
Tim certainly wins no points for diplomacy, but it would be gratifying if more people -- including more funders -- would take him on in intellectual terms. Personally, it seems hard to escape the conclusion that "conservation-based development" is yet another statement of values rather than a description of a methodology with a grounding in the realities of either ecology or bottom-line economics. Foundation staffers are acutely sensitive to the accusation that they care more about owls than they do about loggers, and so are eager to be convinced that you can be nice to owls and loggers at the same time if you're sufficiently decentralist and careful about it all, and make a handsome profit while you're at it. Maybe. But while we conduct the experiment, how about a moratorium on logging in public lands? Sure, that's easier for somebody in New York City to say than for somebody in the Pacific Northwest having to look a Caterpillar operator in the eye, and it may be politically infeasible (for the moment), but on the merits I'm with Hermach as an exercise of the Precautionary Principle. But, hey, my dear erstwhile colleagues, convince me otherwise.
TODAY ON THE SITE
Besides the debate on sustainable forestry, our Brad Auer has sown a veritable jungle of information about forests here at Liberty Tree. From the fraction of the planet covered with trees to comparative timbering practices and their effects on biodiversity to a recently revised roster of opportunities for forest activists, to URLs and links galore, you'll find what you want within Brad's In The Trenches feature.
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