Continuing their slew of environmental rollbacks, the Bush/Rey Forest Service are expected to fully eliminate the “Survey and Manage” standard of the Northwest Forest Plan, thereby removing four-hundred and sixty originally protected species from the lists of plants, fungi, and other critters that must be surveyed for and protected prior to logging on federally owned forests in the Cascades. In response, Cascadia Rising and Back to the Wall are calling for a regional day of action in opposition to the plan in mid-February to coincide with the due date for public comments. Local groups, such as Bark, will be using their on-the-ground knowledge of threatened areas to organize in opposition to the removal of the species protections.

What will these proposed changes mean for the native forests, drinking water, and species of our Cascadian forests? The species can be seen as an indicator of rare and threatened forest ecosystems. By protecting species endemic to old growth forest ecosystems, we are given a management tool that should protect some of our old growth forests from decimation. However, if the changes are implemented, the USFS will be able to further speed up old growth logging in our region, and may elicit re-open controversial sales such as Solo and Clark (aka Fall Creek) cancelled due to these protections. Additionally, the changes spell local extirpation, if not extinction, for many of these species – a rather large hit at the already threatened biodiversity of our region.

Background & History
“Survey and Manage” was originally developed as part of the Northwest Forest Plan. A list of 590 uncommon species was compiled in 1994. For Red Tree Voles and five species of salamanders, surveys were to begin in 1997, and for 71 others, protocols were to be developed with surveys for these species required in sales where logging was expected to begin after 1999. By 1998, over 100 appeals were filed by conservation groups finding that the required surveys were not being done, and 13 conservation groups sued to force implementation of the survey standards. Saying that the Northwest Forest Plan’s species requirements were “clear, plain and unmistakable,” Judge Dwyer enjoined the sales until surveys were complete. Mandated to begin species surveys, the USFS dropped over 118 plants and wildlife from the protected rolls, and reduced protections for an additional 28 in less than three years.

Some groups, such as Oregon Forests Regional Education Group (OFREG), began doing their own citizen surveys as it became apparent that Forest Service protocols did not maximize their chance of finding survey and manage species. The Red Tree Vole, the only mammal protected by Survey and Manage, and the Northern Spotted Owl’s food of choice, became the poster child of a grassroots Survey and Manage fight and a prime forest find for citizen surveyors.

At the Clark Timber Sale, where the Fall Creek tree-sit had successfully kept out logging for over three years, tree-sitters and citizen surveyors ventured higher into the canopies than Forest Service employees in search of the elusive red tree vole. Enough were found to drop the sale from 96 acres to 29 acres.

In Mt. Hood National Forest, at a lichen survey training co-sponsored by Bark, the Native Ecosystem Education Project, and the Cascadia Forest Alliance in the Solo timber sale, one of the rarest lichens of our region, Psuedocyphellaria Rainierensis or old growth specklebelly, was found. The Solo timber sale, predicted to be the next Eagle Creek, proposed to clear-cut 216 acres of old growth forest in the hammered Oak Grove Watershed. Bark acquired protections for the species, but the forest service rebuffed Bark’s efforts to get protections for a second specimen found by a tree-sitter.

The Oregon Natural Resources Council (ONRC) took the Forest Service to court, focusing on six sales across the state, like Solo and Clark, where the Forest Service was making modifications to the sales based on Survey and Manage data without conducting adequate environmental assessments based on this new information, as well as ignoring information found by volunteer citizen surveyors. The result: a big victory for forest defenders across Cascadia! All of the sales included in the lawsuit, were cancelled with the USFS ordered to re-do the environmental assessments to include the new information about these sales.

In response, and in direct violation of the agreements that led to the Northwest Forest Plan, the Bush/Rey Forest Service has decided to remove the Survey and Manage requirement all together.

The problems of the Survey and Manage rollbacks need to be seen in the context of the specific attacks of the Bush administration on the Northwest Forest Plan (such as removal of protection of riparian, or water, areas), and the national reduction of public participation in Management decisions (such as removals of rights to comment and sue when laws are violated under the Healthy Forest Initiative and NFMA changes).

This litany of forest protection rollbacks, proposed by the Bush administration (the largest recipient of timber dollars in the nation), have not be adequately opposed, and at times have been blatantly supported, by our own Senator Wyden (the second largest recipient of timber industry dollars in the nation). [see Willamette Week 11/5/03]

Our forests need us now, and if biodiversity, clean water, air quality, etc are to continue in our region, we need our forests. The Bush administration’s rollbacks highlight our need to take collective action to permanently shift our National Forests and BLM lands away from commercial timber production and towards true non-commercial restoration.

To oppose the rollbacks, find sample comments, documents, and protest information: Contact Bark, working to protect Mt. Hood National Forest, at www.bark-out.org , (503) 331-0374, or info(at)bark-out.org. Contact Cascadia Rising, an ecological defense network spanning the cascade mountains bioregion, at www.cascadiarising.org, Action(at)CascadiaRising.org, or (503) 493-7495.

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON SURVEY & MANAGE:

Documents & Background:

Survey & Manage Program Website: http://www.or.blm.gov/surveyandmanage/
Includes Latest Changes, Management Recommendations, Official Documents, Survey Handbooks, Field Guides, Annual Species Reviews and More. 

How Cascadians Made S & M Work for them (Earth First! Journal): http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/efj/feature.cfm?ID=119&issue=v22n2

ONRC Survey & Manage Lawsuit Chronology (Very Helpful): http://www.onrc.org/press/003.histnwfp.html

ONRC Survey & Manage Resource Page: http://www.onrc.org/info/srvmng.html

Forest Service Mycology Website: http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/mycology/survey/
Contains background information and specific info on Survey and Manage Fungi such identification handbooks

Forest Mycology and Mycorrhiza Research Team:http://mgd.nacse.org/fsl/survey/  More Survey & Manage Fungi Resources

Survey and Manage Species Assessments by Oregon Natural Heritage Information Center: http://oregonstate.edu/ornhic/survey-manage.html

Survey & Manage Day of Action, Cascadia Rising: http://rising.olynetwork.com/news/2003/12/36.php

For DSEIS and FSEIS, see: http://www.or.blm.gov/surveyandmanage/ 

Kathie Durbin’s Article for The Columbian on changes: http://www.gptaskforce.org/newswire_detail.php?id=93

Redding Newspaper Article on Removal of Protections: http://redding.com/top_stories/state/20030524topstate048.shtml

Wilderness Society News Release: http://www.wilderness.org/NewsRoom/Release/20030523.cfm

NW Ecosystem Alliances Sample Draft EIS Comments: http://www.ecosystem.org/OG/action_May_03.html

Federal Register Notice Draft SEIS (PDF): http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/14mar20010800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2003/pdf/03-12912.pdf

 

Lawsuit 2003 (Dropped 6 Sales):

ONRC Press Release: http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/10/273051.shtml

Judge King’s Decision on the Merits: http://www.onrc.org/press/ONRCv.USFS.pdf

ONRC Press Release on Merits: http://www.onrc.org/press/077.oldgrowth.html

AP Article on Lawsuit: http://rising.olynetwork.com/news/2003/10/24.php

Register-Guard Article on Lawsuit: http://www.registerguard.com/news/2003/10/10/c1.cr.loggingsuit.1010.html

Lawsuits 2002 (Timber Industry sues to remove S&M, Conservations sue over species being dropped):

USFS/BLM Settlement with Douglas Timber: http://www.or.blm.gov/surveyandmanage/General/Other/IB-OR-2003-022-
Settlement%20Agreement%20for%20the%20Survey%20and%20Manage%20Lawsuit.htm

The Columbian Article on Timber Industry Lawsuit: http://www.nwoldgrowth.org/infostation/doc_detail.cfm?docID=211

Olympian Article on ONRC Lawsuit: http://news.theolympian.com/specialsections/Outdoors/20020216/18318.shtml

Western Environmental Law Release: http://www.westernlaw.org/forest/survey.html

Citizen Times Article (Contextualizes Lawsuit): http://cgi.citizen-times.com/cgi-bin/story/33789

Seattle Times Article on Settlement: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001468051_logging11m.html

2001 Changes (Species Dropped):

USFS & BLM ROD Press Release: http://forests.org/archive/america/dectocha.htm

Biodiversity NW Action Alert: http://www.biodiversitynw.org/OldGrowth/alert102402.htm

Lawsuit 1999:

ONRC Survey & Manage FAQ, 1999: http://www.onrc.org/press/002.faqnwfp.html

Umpqua Watersheds Chronology, FAQ & Media around 1999 Lawsuit: http://www.umpqua-watersheds.org/s&m.html#pr

Western Environmental Law Update: http://www.pielc.uoregon.edu/welu/Spring2000/00welu09.html

USFS Reaction: http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/press/1999/pr203.htm

1998: Timber Sales Rushed Through to Avoid Surveys:

ONRC Press Release on Rushed Sales: http://www.onrc.org/programs/wforest/rushsale.html

List of Timber Sales Rushed Through in 1998 to Avoid S & M Surveys: http://www.onrc.org/programs/wforest/rushlist.html

Specific Timber Sales: Survey & Manage:

Laroux Timber Sale (Larch Mountain Salamander): GiffordPinchotNational Forest: http://www.gptaskforce.org/newswire_detail.php?id=81

Red Tree Voles Found at Fall Creek: http://www.efn.org/~cforestd/Current_News/Red_Tree_Voles_Found/

Old Growth Specklebelly Lichen Found at Solo: http://www.bark-out.org/tsdb/solo/solo_2003-02-06.html

Cotton Snake Timber Sale Lawsuit (Red Tree Voles): http://www.kswild.org/article.php?id=6

Survey & Manage at Eagle Creek Timber Sales: http://www.onrc.org/info/Eagle/surveys.html