Secretary of Agriculture - National Vision for America's Forests

[The Straight Story]

Transcript of Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack’s Speech
National Vision for America's Forests,
(August 14, 2009, Seattle, WA)

(pasted from pdf file, link to full release at bottom)


Our shared vision must adopt an all-lands approach, requiring close collaboration with the NRCS and its work on America’s
private working lands. Now, why should restoration be the driving principle in
forest policy? Well, there's no doubt that we're facing a health crisis in our forests.
Climate change places them under increasing stress that exacerbates the threat of
fire, disease, and insects throughout the West but in other parts of the country as
well. A legacy of fire suppression has resulted in forests that are overstocked and
much more susceptible to catastrophic fire and disease. Restoring forest
ecosystems, particularly in fire adapted forests, will make our forests more resilient
to climate induced stresses and will ensure that our forests will continue to provide
ample, abundant clean water.

In many of our forests, restoration will also include
efforts to improve or decommission roads, to replace and improve culverts, and to
rehabilitate streams and wetlands. Restoration will also mean the rehabilitation of
declining ecosystems. One example in the South is the long leaf pine ecosystem, a
forest that has been reduced from 90 million acres to today a mere 3 million acres.
Yet the Forest Service faces a number of barriers in pursuing a restoration agenda.
For years, the Forest Service has struggled with a budget that has forced
management funds to be shifted to firefighting. We must do better, and we can do
better. The Obama administration is already working with Congressman Dicks and
others in the congress to ensure that the Forest Service has the funds it needs to
fight fires and to manage forests. Now, this is an important issue for our forests.
But it is also important for the men and women who make up the Forest Service. It
is our responsibility to give them the resources they need to succeed. A second
barrier to accomplishing restoration is a history of distrust between
environmentalists, the Forest Service, and the forestry community.

The result has been seemingly countless appeals of forest management activity and subsequent
litigation. Now, certainly appeals and litigation have served as a useful backstop
against misplaced management decisions. But given the scale of restoration that
must occur and the time in which we have to do it, a shared vision built on
collaboration will help us move beyond the timber wars of the past. Litigation and
conflict should become less prevalent because they can be viewed as less necessary.
Now, fortunately, this process has begun. In many regions today, the Forest Service
is already charting a path forward by building trust through diverse stakeholders
through collaboration and engagement. A third barrier revolves around the loss of
forest infrastructure represented by those who work in the forest industry.

In large parts of the West we’ve lost timber mills, and those who worked in them have left
the area. As a result, today we continue to lose the capacity to perform the
important kinds of restoration work that must be done from thinning for habitat or
watershed function to reducing hazardous fuels to removing trees to prevent the
spread of insects and disease. Without a robust forest industry that includes both
traditional markets and these new markets like biomass energy, it will be much
more difficult and much, much more expensive to improve the health of our forests.


Now, the Colville National Forest right here in Washington is a terrific example of
the sort of collaborative effort that allows for appropriate forest management while
providing timber supply to local mills. It is here-- the first national forest that is so-
- that engaged a diverse group of stakeholders in the most recent revision to their
forest plan. Individuals and groups including elected officials, timber interest,
motorized recreationists, conservationists; they all got together to discuss the
common goals for the forest. The result: general acceptance was reached about
where to concentrate future recreation and where to timber-- harvest timber.

And tens of thousands, tens of thousands of additional acres in Colville were recognized
for their roadless character and the potential for wilderness designation. It is no
small testament to this effort and to the energy of those involved that this area has
avoided litigation for more than five years since that process was initiated. Now,
the experience here is not unique, but it can be more broadly applied. If we
undertake restoration of our national forests at a scale commensurate with the need,
we will need to do more of this. The Forest Service planning process provides an
important venue to integrate forest restoration, climate resilience, watershed
protection, wildlife conservation, the need for vibrant local economies, and the
collaboration necessary to manage our national forests. Our best opportunity to
accomplish this is in the developing of a new forest planning rule for our national
forests. As many of you may know, in late June, a federal court overturned a 2008
planning rule put forward by the Forest Service. This came on the heels of a similar
court decision overturning the 2005 planning rule. Now, faced with this, the Forest
Service has a decision to appeal these decisions or not. Well, we've decided not to
seek further review of the latest court decision. And I've asked Chief Tidwell to
develop a new planning rule to ensure management and restoration of our national
forest with the goal and vision of protecting our water, climate, and wildlife while
also creating economic opportunity.

Another integral part of our shared vision must
be adequate protection for roadless areas. President Obama was quite clear in his
campaign in emphasizing his support for protecting roadless areas. He understood
the important role they play in preserving water, climate, and recreational
opportunities. Just last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower
court’s decision reinstating the 2001 Clinton roadless rule.

I view this is as a very, very positive development, yet the Forest Service is still subjected to a court
injunction from a Wyoming district court judge in the tenth circuit in joining the
Forest Service from implementing the 2001 rule. Let me be clear. We will seek to
lift that injunction in light of the ninth circuit’s decision. And if the courts remain
conflicted, or it's not possible to protect roadless areas through the courts, we will
initiate a new rule making process to do so. I recognize that some states are already
taking action on their own. Colorado is moving forward with its own roadless rule
as Idaho already has. We believe Idaho's rule is a strongly protective one for
roadless areas. And we note wisely that Governor Ritter in Colorado has asked for
additional input on his draft roadless plan for Colorado. He understands, as I do,
that Colorado needs strong roadless protection, and so does the entire nation. Now,
the threats facing our forests do not recognize property boundaries.

So in developing a shared vision around forests, we must also be willing to look across
property boundaries. In other words, we must operate a landscape scale operation
by taking an all-lands approach. The reality is that 80% of the forest area in the
United States is outside of the national forest system. And many of our national
forests are adjacent to state and private land. Management decisions that are made
both on and of the national forest obviously have important implications for that
forest landscape. More broadly, privately owned forests across the country face a
daunting set of challenges. As Congressman Dicks indicated, the Forest Service
estimates that over 40 million acres, 40 million acres of private forest could be lost
to development and fragmentation over the coming decades.

Americans tend to think that deforestation is a problem only in tropical countries. Well, I'm here to
tell you that we have our own deforestation problem right here in the U.S. of A.
And this has enormous implications for the climate, our drinking water, our rural
economies, and wildlife. Just keeping forests as forests remains a significant
challenge. The good news is that conservation groups, forest industry, and
government agencies are increasingly willing to unite to address the common threat
of the potential loss of forest lands on private land. I want the Forest Service and
the USDA to partner with these stakeholders in protecting those privately owned
forests. I believe, and I know Chief Tidwell agrees, that the Forest Service and the
USDA can play an important role in working with these stakeholders to address
forest loss. Indeed, our Forest Service has a long history in working with private
landowners through its partnership with state foresters and others in addressing
stewardship on privately owned forests.

And USDA has its own unique strengths in
this area as well. The 2008 farm bill provides new opportunities to use existing
conservation programs and to focus those resources on the most pressing problems
facing family owned forests. Many of our farm programs and conservation
programs have much greater potential than the USDA has realized today to protect,
rehabilitate, and conserve family forest land. An important goal of the USDA and
the Forest Service should be to integrate the work of the Forest Service and our
National Resources Conservation Service. This will be vital to embrace an all-lands
approach. Now, government programs provide only part of what is needed to
realize our shared vision. For forest ownership and stewardship to remain viable, it
must remain economically rewarding as well for landowners. Markets for wood
will remain important to those landowners and local communities. But private and
public landowners must also access new markets for both low- and high-value
products and services and forest uses in order to underwrite stewardship activities.


Emerging markets for carbon and sustainable bioenergy will provide landowners
with expanded economic incentive to maintain and restore our forests. Our Forest
Service must play a significant role in the development of these new markets and
must ensure their integrity. But carbon and bioenergy aren’t the only new
opportunity for landowners. Markets for water can also provide landowners with
incentives to restore wetlands, watersheds, and to manage forests for clean and
abundant water supplies. These markets can also create jobs in rural communities
near forests. By generating rural wealth, we can make it possible again for
landowners to sustain our forests and our working landscapes. I hope we'll examine
other policies and approaches outside of the USDA and the Forest Service that can
address both management and also potential loss of private forest land.

I know Chief Tidwell and his counterpart, David White at NRCS, will seek out
opportunities to work with conservation groups, with the forest industry, with state
foresters and others to ensure that we maintain the private forests and utilize this
all-lands approach. The loss of our private working lands and private forests
deserve constant attention. Now, I've offered a broad vision today to guide the
Forest Service and the Department of Agriculture in setting a new course for
America's forests. I recognize that there is a great deal of work yet to be done to
make this a reality. And so I'm tasking the Forest Service and USDA in partnership
with all the stakeholders to make this vision a reality. In the short term, I’ll ask
Chief Tidwell to initiate that process to develop new planning rules to guide the
management of our national forests consistent with this vision.

We'll also monitor progress towards the protection of roadless areas in the courts, and we'll act to
protect roadless areas as necessary. When it comes to restoring our forests, I want
the Forest Service to improve its existing authorities and take advantage of new
tools to restore all of our forests in order to protect our water and make our forests
more resilient to climate change. I'm asking Chief Tidwell and Chief White to
work together in partnership with all groups, state forester, conservation groups, the
forest industry, and others to develop a broad agenda for protecting our privately
owned forests and our working lands. And I want the Forest Service and USDA to
play an even more prominent role in developing those new markets I spoke of,
carbon, bioenergy, and water, as a means to conserve our forests.

The path ahead is challenging, but it is full of opportunity. We must encourage, catalogue, and
expand the collaborative solutions that hold the most promise to protect our public
lands and our working lands. We must dramatically accelerate the scale and pace of
forest stewardship here on both public and private lands. On our national forests,
we must restore more acres more rapidly if we are to prevent catastrophic fires,
insect outbreaks, and other threats, particularly as climate change makes those
threats more potent. On private land, we must move more quickly to protect our
forest landscapes before they no longer can function to support watershed health,
biodiversity, conservation, and viable wood markets. Americans often assume that
our health and well-being are separate from the health of our natural world. But I
return again to the simple act that we Americans often take for granted every day:
turning on those water faucets.

The clean water that emerges is made possible in
large part by the stewardship of our working rural land and our forests in particular.
My hope, and I trust you share it, is that together we can foster a greater
appreciation in this country for our forests and that all Americans, regardless of
where they live, see the quality of their lives, and the quality of their forests as
inseparable. Thank you very much.

http://www.fs.fed.us/video/tidwell/vilsack.pdf