December 2006, Newsletter #17 Welcome to THE RED LODGE CLEARINGHOUSE, the full-service information source for collaborative groups throughout the Interior West committed to resolving resource-use conflicts. The centennial of the U.S. Forest Service was a powerful reminder that while issues of state dominate the headlines, our public and private natural resources remain our most valuable and timeless legacy. This letter examines aspects of the state of collaborative work, assessments of the future of the "new" Forest Service, now dogged in its determination to run the public out of pre-decision influence in forest management, roadless decisions that seem resistant to resolution and the BLM marching, apparently, to the same drummer. And notable by omission, scarcely a word to advance Stewardship End Result Contracting, once heralded as the way the Forest Service would do business in the future. Western Collaborative Assistance Network announced NEWS RELEASE, 12/01/06 The National Forest Foundation and the Sonoran Institute are working in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, and others to offer the Western Collaboration Assistance Network (WestCAN), a program that provides short-term expertise to help collaborative efforts get started or to work through challenging issues. [Note: the Red Lodge Clearinghouse collaboration handbook, developed as a "building capacity" tool and stemming from the original Red Lodge Workshop.] READ MORE >> Collaborative Forest Restoration Program The 2007 Collaborative Forest Restoration Program (CFRP) Annual Workshop will be held January 30 through February 1, 2007, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The workshop brings together CFRP grantees, their partners and other stakeholders to share their experiences and discuss accomplishments, challenges, and strategies to overcome barriers to the implementation of collaborative forest restoration projects. COLLABORATIVE FOREST RESTORATION PROGRAM HOME PAGE >> PEACE BREAKS OUT IN NEW MEXICO'S FORESTS >> READ MORE ON THE Collaborative Forest Restoration Program >> How collaborative is "cooperative conservation"? BY DANIEL BERGER, HEADWATERS NEWS, 10/26/06 "Cooperative conservation" has been touted as the future-is-now approach to solving public lands and natural resource issues in the West. Conservation groups support it; government and agencies like it; even the Western Governors Association and the Bush administration are behind it. In fact, it has become somewhat of a mantra for the Interior Department and Department of Agriculture. [Editor's note: Yesterday's Forest Service announcement vitiating NEPA feeds into Daniel Berger's skepticism.] SEE FULL STORY >> COLLABORATION HAS ITS PLACE >> Interior official urges cooperation on land restoration >> BLM releases collaboration desk guide DECEMBER 2006 The BLM's collaboration desk guide is intended to help BLM employees and interested members of the public build and sustain successful partnerships. The purpose of the document is to identify principles, desired outcomes and some useful practices to help the agency use a collaborative process to achieve Cooperative Conservation. It is not intended to be a cookbook, but rather a discussion of a range of proven methods. DOWNLOAD GUIDE (.PDF) >> To read more about specific collaborative groups — including the successful effort to protect New Mexico's Valle Vidal — please visit our home page. New forest plan rule nukes NEPA BY BRODIE FARQUHAR, NEW WEST, 12/12/06 The U.S. Forest Service finalized rules Tuesday, that will allow forest officials to ignore the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when amending or writing new forest management plans. “This is what lame-duck administrations do when they get the tar beaten out of them,” said Andy Stahl, executive director for Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, based in Oregon. “They (the Bush administration) won’t be able to get anything through Congress, so all that’s left is administrative rulings,” said Stahl – much as President Clinton did when faced with a Congress controlled by the opposing party. During the public comment period for the new rule, Stahl testified that the proposed action was illegal. “Now we’ll go tell a judge the same thing,” he said. SEE FULL STORY >> FOREST SERVICE STATEMENT >> FOREST PLANS GET NEW ROUTE >> Mark Rey: Public land laws are due for an overhaul BY RICHARD WERST, CLARK FORK CHRONICLE, 12/07/06 [Editor's note: Mark Rey taking a more adventuresome approach as to the flexibility of the legislative process, recommends a wholesale revisitation of U.S. environmental laws.] The system of laws governing public land management in the United States is disjointed and archaic, according to Mark Rey, Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment. Addressing those gathered for a conference on “Challenges Facing the U.S. Forest Service,” presented by the University of Montana’s O’Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West, the keynote speaker referred to the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest Management Act, and the Federal Land and Policy Management Act as process-oriented measures with broad and lofty goals. He deemed other laws such as the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act Zero Discharge Standard “absolutist proscriptions.” SEE FULL STORY >> Jack Ward Thomas, former Chief of the Forest Service, says Forest Service facing tough future BY PERRY BACKUS, THE MISSOULIAN, 11/30/06 In Jack Ward Thomas' eye, his beloved Forest Service is like an abused pony - cross hobbled, blindfolded, spurred on one side, reins yanked hard on the other. It just doesn't know which way to turn. [Editor's note: RLCH feels it necessary to point out that Jack Ward Thomas has been out of the service for 10 years and therefore may not be speaking from current on-the-ground experience.] SEE FULL STORY >> Western governors update 10-year fire plan BY DAN BERMAN, GREENWIRE, 12/08/06 Federal land managers and the Western Governors' Association released a new plan yesterday designed to improve cooperation and accountability in efforts to decrease wildfire risk across the West. [Note: Carol Daly, consultant to the Red Lodge Clearinghouse, in forwarding some recent thoughts on collaboration itself, did mention that many of the new programs being undertaken by forest service staff concern themselves almost totally with hazardous fuel reduction. She sees this as collaboration-lite — we see it consistent with stewardship contracting-lite.] SEE FULL STORY >> DOWNLOAD PLAN (.PDF) >> Forest Service centralizes administrative offices in Albuquerque BY APRIL REESE, LAND LETTER, 12/07/06 For the first time in its history, the U.S. Forest Service has consolidated its administrative functions in one place. The move to this desert outpost along the Rio Grande is designed to improve efficiency and free up more money for on-the-ground work, agency officials say. SEE FULL STORY >> Wildlife would suffer under BLM plan for Wyoming's Atlantic Rim, critics say BY APRIL REESE, LAND LETTER, 12/07/06 The Bureau of Land Management has proposed expanding natural gas development in the Green River Basin in south-central Wyoming. While the project is expected to yield significant amounts of gas, environmental groups and state wildlife officials say it would have harmful effects on sage grouse, elk and other wildlife. SEE FULL STORY >> Interior documents development restrictions on federal lands BY BEN GEMAN, LAND LETTER, 11/30/06 A new Interior Department report finds that substantial volumes of oil and gas on energy-rich federal lands are off-limits to development. SEE FULL STORY >> BLM pulls energy leases BY WHITNEY ROYSTER, CASPER STAR-TRIBUNE, 12/07/06 In a rare move, U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials withdrew two parcels from a Tuesday energy lease sale upon recommendation of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. The two parcels north of Daniel in western Wyoming on BLM property are on wildlife migration routes, according to Game and Fish. SEE FULL STORY >> BLM grants winter drilling exceptions BY WHITNEY ROYSTER, CASPER STAR-TRIBUNE, 11/13/06 The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has called for no new exceptions allowing more natural gas development activity on federal lands around Pinedale this winter, but the agency isn't getting its way. All requests for exceptions submitted by energy companies to the Bureau of Land Management so far this year have been granted. SEE FULL STORY >> Game and Fish takes a stand BY WHITNEY ROYSTER, CASPER STAR-TRIBUNE, 11/02/06 The Wyoming Game and Fish Department in the past has approved of some natural gas drilling during the winter in crucial big game winter range around Pinedale. Not this year. SEE FULL STORY >> BLM gives green light to shale test leases BY BEN GEMAN, LAND LETTER, 11/16/06 The Bureau of Land Management has approved environmental studies for oil shale testing leases in Colorado, finding that the projects would have "no significant impact on the human environment." SEE FULL STORY >> West could see gas, oil boom over 20 years BY GARGI CHAKRABARTY, ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS, 10/19/06 Drilling rigs that dot the Rocky Mountain landscape could fill in even more dramatically based on the number of approvals by the federal government. The Bush administration has nearly 119,000 new oil and gas wells on the books for public lands in Colorado, Utah, Montana, Wyoming and New Mexico over the next two decades. That's nearly double the current 63,000 producing wells on public lands in those five states. SEE FULL STORY >> Huntsman riles hunters, anglers BY JOE BAIRD, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, 12/11/06 As Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. inches closer to presenting the state's roadless forest petition to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, opposition is mounting to his proposal, which calls for a repeal of all roadless forest protection in Utah. Now, it is hunters, anglers and former state wildlife officials who are raising red flags. SEE FULL STORY >> Risch roadless plan shocks conservationists BY STEVE BENSON, IDAHO MOUNTAIN EXPRESS, 12/01/06 Hell hasn't frozen over and pigs still can't fly but conservationists are embracing Idaho Gov. Jim Risch's management plan for the state's 9.3 million acres of roadless national forest land. SEE FULL STORY >> Roadless wrangling is endless EDITORIAL, DENVER POST, 12/04/06 It's a quiet season in the more remote stretches of the West's national forests, as winter cold and snows turn aside all but the hardiest visitors. But the future of those roadless areas is a hot topic in courtrooms and the halls of government. SEE FULL STORY >> GEM AND BEEHIVE: IDAHO FOREST PLAN MORE THOUGHTFUL THAN UTAH'S >> Judge enjoins USFS from drilling, roadbuilding in roadless areas BY DAN BERMAN, GREENWIRE, 11/30/06 The Forest Service must stop work on 84 oil and gas projects and an Idaho road project because they violate the Clinton-era roadless rule that was recently reinstated, a federal judge ruled yesterday. SEE FULL STORY >> Roadless decisions — How much public participation? BY KATHRYN MUTZ, NATURAL RESOURCES LAW CENTER, DECEMBER 2006 We asked the Natural Resources Law Center of the University of Colorado to dig up some references on the role the public plays in making decisions on roadless area management under the various rules. Here's what Kathryn Mutz came up with — neither the Clinton Roadless Rule nor the State Petitioning Rule mandates public participation — in the rule. READ MORE >> HOME PAGE  |   CONTACT US