Federal Resource Management Agencies Research Articles

IS THAT A THING? APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENTISTS IN FEDERAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

Abstract Social scientists working in the federal government have played many roles in the context of natural resources management. Our purpose is to highlight the nature of these applied positions, provide a rationale for social science, and assert the need to enhance social science capacity in federal natural resources management. Social scientists are required because effective environmental management demands a sophisticated understanding of humans, and social scientists have specific training and skills needed by the agencies to meet this need and environmental mandates. Agencies and bureaus rely on applied social scientists to help them understand and determine the environmental consequences of their decisions for citizens. We highlight the importance of having trained social scientists in management and leadership in federal resource management agencies because they are equipped to address the greatest challenges in this arena.

“With the Stroke of a Pen”: Designation of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument and the Impact on Trust

In September of 1996, without prior warning to Utah residents, the Clinton Administration announced the creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM) in southern Utah. Reactions by residents in neighboring gateway communities were both swift and intense. Lack of citizen input in the process drew ire among Utah citizens living near the monument and statewide. In this article we examine how the designation process has impacted residents’ trust in the federal agency managing the monument—the Bureau of Land Management. Research on trust in federal resource management agencies is important for successful natural resource planning and management. We extend the research by incorporating the manner in which the designation of the GSENM occurred as an additional factor in the analyses on trust. We find the manner of designation matters, and discuss implications of this finding for both research and policy makers.

Incorporating biodiversity conservation and recreational wildlife values into smart growth land use planning

Smart growth land use planning seeks to balance the infrastructure needs of a growing human population and protection for the environment. Unfortunately, the data required to adequately incorporate biodiversity objectives into land use plans is often not available to planners. One problem is that there are few documented methods that detail how biodiversity data held by resource management agencies can be converted to a format useful for inclusion into smart growth plans. Here we demonstrate an approach that allows for state, provincial, or federal resource management agencies to disseminate data on (1) biodiversity conservation, and (2) conservation of wildlife of recreational value for incorporation into local land use plans. Our approach uses modeled threats and species richness data to identify high priority conservation areas and areas more suitable for future development. This approach provides a transparent mechanism to facilitate inclusion of biodiversity objectives into smart growth planning.

The Benefits of Naturalist-Led Interpretive Programs: Implications for User Fees

The 1996 Recreation Fee Demonstration program allowed some federal resource management agencies to keep a portion of user fees generated on-site, instead of returning all revenue to the general treasury. Funded primarily through entrance, activity, parking, and interpretive fees, this legislation has been successful in reducing the maintenance backlog for participating agencies. However, it is unclear what effect user fees might have on visitors attending interpretive programs and the benefits that agencies might be receive from implementing this policy. A field experiment was conducted to measure the outcomes of a naturalist-led, fee-based canoeing program offered by the San Bernardino National Forest Association in southern California. Two hundred twenty-seven canoeists at Big Bear Lake answered questions about their trips during the summer of 1999. Results indicated that the naturalist not only increased visitors’ appreciation of the resource, but also enhanced their perceptions of U.S. Forest Service fee policies.

Viewpoint: Benefits and Impacts of Wildlife Water Developments

Resource managers in the western United States have long assumed that water was a key limiting factor on wildlife populations in arid habitats. Beginning in the 1940s-1950s, state and federal resource management agencies initiated water development programs intended to benefit game species and other wildlife. At least 5,859 such developments have been built in 11 western states. Most state wildlife management agencies in the western United States have ongoing wildlife water development programs that vary greatly in extent. Ranchers and range managers also have developed water sources for livestock, many of which also are used by wildlife. Recently, critics have suggested that wildlife water developments have not yielded expected benefits, and may negatively impact wildlife by increasing predation, competition, and disease transmission. Based upon a comprehensive review of scientific literature, we conclude that wildlife water developments have likely benefitted many game and non-game species, but not all water development projects have yielded expected increases in animal distribution and abundance. Hypothesized negative impacts of water developments on wildlife are not supported by data and remain largely speculative. However, our understanding of both positive and negative effects of wildlife water developments is incomplete, because of design limitations of previous research. Long-term, experimental studies are needed to address unanswered questions concerning the efficacy and ecological effects of water developments. We also recommend that resource managers apply more rigorous planning criteria to new developments, and expand monitoring efforts associated with water development programs.

Conservation on the Cusp: The Reformation of National Forest Policy in the Sierra Nevada

ABSTRACT From 1960 to 1999, a variety of laws and other public policies influenced the management of the national forests in the Sierra Nevada. Existing laws and new statutes contained directives for the planning, management, conservation and preservation of national forest lands and resources. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) forced the U.S. Forest Service to disclose information about land management plans and their impacts. The stattre also led to greater public awareness of management issues and increased public involvement in agency decision-making. As a result, efforts to increase timber production in Sierra Nevada national forests met increased public scrutiny, and with political and legal opposition. The National Forest Management Act of 1976 (NFMA) mandated extensive planning to promote effective and efficient conservation and use of forest resources and to resolve forest management controversies. However, the conflict between the demand for increased timber and demands for increased recreation and wilderness preservation limited NFMA's effectiveness. Discord over national forest policies did not begin with NFMA, but the broad scope of land management planning generated remarkable public attention and controversy. Public opposition to increased clearcutting and other activities that potentially led to impacts on wildlife habitat and other aspects of ecosystems led to administrative and legal challenges to national forest plans. In the early 1990s, the Forest Service's reinterpretation of existing law impelled it to extensively revise both its management objectives in the Sierra Nevada and its planning for the national forests in the region. Agency planning sought to better incorporate scientific knowledge about species and habitat requirements into an ecosystem management strategy. Instead of ending the uncertainty over the conservation and management of forested lands and resources, eight years of agency planning pursuant to this new perspective engendered additional controversies. The continuing inability to resolve environmental issues strongly indicates both a need and opportunity for significant changes in the institutional structures governing the national forests of these lands. INTRODUCTION Natural resource policy and planning initiatives in the Sierra Nevada, California's spectacular mountain region, have had profound implications for the management of the area's natural resources. This study explores a range of public policies and issues associated with national forest management, and examines their impact on the administration of the national forests of the Sierra Nevada during the period from 1960 to 1999. Environmental activism, public interest litigation, internal agency decisions, and legislative initiatives of the past four decades have changed the traditional management practices of the federal resource management agencies. Environmental politics, directly or indirectly, led to many policy modifications. Evolving scientific understanding of natural resources intersected with broader social and legal developments. Reforming natural resource management led to major statutory, administrative and legal changes. As a result, national forest management policy for the national forests of the United States has been dramatically restructured during this period. Initiatives for reform have addressed two interrelated phenomena that present significant challenges in governance for the region: 1) political activism resulting from environmental and social concerns; and 2) incapacity of public institutions and private market forces to improve environmental conservation and management. This research evaluates the progress of these initiatives and offers a rethinking of the prospects for natural resource management and ecosystem conservation in the Sierra Nevada. Prior to World War II, the Forest Service had established a reputation for expert management in public administration, and for being an able player in national politics. …

Ecosystem Management Challenges Ecologists

The acceptance of ecosystem management as a guiding paradigm in federal resource management agencies (GAO 1994) presents challenges to ecologists. In this essay, we identify some of those challenges and provide examples of how some are being addressed in an Ecosystem Management Demonstration Project in the Nantahala National Forest, North Carolina. The Ecological Society of America's report on the scientific basis of ecosystem management (Christensen et al. 1996) meets the first challenge, which is to provide a definition of ecosystem management that reflects the consensus of the scientific community and demonstrates the scientific underpinnings of this approach. Further progress in ecosystem management requires application and further development and refinement of these concepts in real world management settings. Earlier management approaches have also been guided by application of ecological principles (e.g., Hornbeck and Swank 1992, Swank and Van Lear 1992). However, ecosystem management differs from prior management concepts in several important ways (Christensen et al. 1996):

A SYSTEMS RESOURCES APPROACH TO CITIZEN PARTICIPATION: THE CASE OF THE CORPS OF ENGINEERS1

ABSTRACT: The thesis of this paper is that the citizen participation process provides necessary, but not sufficient conditions to affect substantive change in federal water resource management agencies' planning and decisionmaking. That is, in its present form, the citizen participation process has been observed to occur outside of the normal decision arenas of federal resource management agencies. The paper reviews concepts of citizen participation and defines some theoretical problems inherent with them. Then, a strategy for the structuring of a citizen participation process is proposed. This strategy is based upon the notion that citizen support for federally sponsored programs are essential if such projects are to be implemented. Therefore, an approach which integrates citizen valves with those held by other institutions and the agency is suggested. In conclusion, the relevancy of actively developing and including citizen input to the water resource planning process is illustrated by a discussion of three cases of the Corps of Engineers and Urban Studies planning process, in different metropolitan regions.