The Three R's: Resilience, Restoration, Regeneration- A quick guide to Agency Newspeak by Tennessee Heartwood
Since the passage of the Healty Forests Restoration Act of 2003, the Forest Service has shifted its rationale for its timber program away from pure dollars to a kind of ecological justification. Increasingly, agency projects, plans, and its governing policies are couched in the "Three R's": "resilience", "restoration", and "regeneration". These terms have done much to mollify a public that increasingly were opposing the ecological and economic losses happening to National Forests. Let's take a look at how these terms are being misused to "greenwash" bad forest policies.
Certainly, as many now know that our forests have faced heavy alteration and the severe decline of many species and habitats, "restoration" sounds like a reassuring term- and there are cases where the agency is doing legitimate restoration. However, the term become the first of many buzzwords of the last two decades that has been frequently misused to justify more of the same old subsidized logging. In the East, many forests have undertaken disastrous restoration projects to promote various dry oak forest communities, often at a scale and at locations that have not been successful. For example, the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area (LBL) and Chattahoochee National Forests have spent years in a quiotic attempt to create Oak Grassland forest communites, with no success.
So damaging to the the landscape, citizens have formed a broad coalition to oppose "the 8600", an oak grassland attempt that has been going on for over a decade. The results are grim:
Certainly, as many now know that our forests have faced heavy alteration and the severe decline of many species and habitats, "restoration" sounds like a reassuring term- and there are cases where the agency is doing legitimate restoration. However, the term become the first of many buzzwords of the last two decades that has been frequently misused to justify more of the same old subsidized logging. In the East, many forests have undertaken disastrous restoration projects to promote various dry oak forest communities, often at a scale and at locations that have not been successful. For example, the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area (LBL) and Chattahoochee National Forests have spent years in a quiotic attempt to create Oak Grassland forest communites, with no success.
So damaging to the the landscape, citizens have formed a broad coalition to oppose "the 8600", an oak grassland attempt that has been going on for over a decade. The results are grim:
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The Coalition for the Preservation of the Land Between the Rivers, was formed to halt the expansion of this 8600 acre failure. Documents obtained by Kentucky Heartwood under the Freedom of Information Act revealed a secret attempt by the agency to expand the project, even though there were no successes with the tremendous acreage they had already been given.
Meanwhile, the Chattahoochee National Forest was pursuing a similar project, known at the Brawley Restoration Project. Once again, at a cost of thousands to the taxpayer, the project has gone on for over a decade with no success. Indeed, there are hundreds of acres of burned, cut-over briars and coppice stumps. These are but two of many projects that have help degrade further a landscape that is in serious need of healing. |
Another "R" is forest regeneration. In the East, a lot of energy is being spent in logging oak and shortleaf pine forests to..... "regenerate and restore" oak and shortleaf pine forests. In forests like the Cherokee and Pisgah there are thousands of acres of forests that have shifted to poplar and maple thickets in pursuit of this goal. This presentation shows how in photographic detail how this goal has also resulted in severe erosion and loss of forest productivity from this practice in the Cherokee.
Shortleaf pine regeneration and restoration project caused over $100,000 in your tax dollars to fix at the Cherokee National Forest.
The agency makes use of the "restoration" and "regeneration" language throughout its governing documents to minimize or even eliminate public review and accountaibility. The increased use of the Categorical Exclusion allowed by the agency to pursue bigger and bigger projects without a required Environmental Analysis or public comment and appeal. Indeed, the text of the new NEPA rule proposal uses "restoration" throughout the document to justify shutting out public comment.
The third "R", "resiliency", is appearing more in agency literature as well. An ambiguous term, resiliency has appeared frequently in conjunction with the agency's stated goals for addressing the effects of climate change. More logging and "restoration logging" projects list "climate change resiliency" as a stated purpose and need. Some of these projects can even take on an element of the speculative. For example, rangers at the Land Between the Lakes did a logging project to promote shortleaf pine, a species whose northwestern extent of its range stops just south of the forest. Its project taking place 40 miles to the north was stated to promote climate change resiliency under the presumption that global warming will shift the range of shortleaf to the north. Whether or not this will happen is beside the point. Shouldn't we let nature decide that?
The use of these terms looms large in this proposed rule, with measures to exclude the public based on "ecosystem restoration and resilience activities," essentially claiming that any use of these terms is a justifiable goal in itself. It's time for the public to take a more critical eye at how the agency uses or misuses otherwise laudable ideas to serve other ends. Only then our National Forests be places that are truly healthy oases of biodiversity and ecosystem resiliency.
The third "R", "resiliency", is appearing more in agency literature as well. An ambiguous term, resiliency has appeared frequently in conjunction with the agency's stated goals for addressing the effects of climate change. More logging and "restoration logging" projects list "climate change resiliency" as a stated purpose and need. Some of these projects can even take on an element of the speculative. For example, rangers at the Land Between the Lakes did a logging project to promote shortleaf pine, a species whose northwestern extent of its range stops just south of the forest. Its project taking place 40 miles to the north was stated to promote climate change resiliency under the presumption that global warming will shift the range of shortleaf to the north. Whether or not this will happen is beside the point. Shouldn't we let nature decide that?
The use of these terms looms large in this proposed rule, with measures to exclude the public based on "ecosystem restoration and resilience activities," essentially claiming that any use of these terms is a justifiable goal in itself. It's time for the public to take a more critical eye at how the agency uses or misuses otherwise laudable ideas to serve other ends. Only then our National Forests be places that are truly healthy oases of biodiversity and ecosystem resiliency.