REMARKS OF CHIEF MIKE DOMBECK
TO FOREST SERVICE REGIONAL FORESTERS AND DIRECTORS
April 8, 1997
Introduction
Next week I will celebrate my 100th day on the job. I want to tell
you how much I appreciate all of your patience, advice, and
encouragement over the past few months. More importantly, I want to
say thank you to all of our field employees for their hard work and
support.
More and more, I appreciate the scope and breadth of the services and
leadership that we provide to the American people. For example,
through our leadership on the Santiago Agreement, we are making clear
to other nations that we can live in productive harmony with the
natural world that sustains us. Indeed, we are the testing-ground for
sustainable development. We in this country -- with all of our
national wealth, industrial strength, and international trade -- must
demonstrate to the rest of the world that economic prosperity and
environmental protection can co-exist. To further this perspective, I
will lead the U.S. delegation to Turkey next fall for the 12th World
Forestry Congress.
The Forests Products Lab in Madison and the Pacific Northwest Research
Station are working with the people of southeast Alaska to bring new
value-added technologies to the region that will enhance conservation,
more efficient wood utilization, and economic opportunities.
Forest Service Leadership
We are the leaders in a USDA wide effort to beautify and improve
Washington, D.C. This effort will begin in several weeks with the
planting of the first of 1000 trees that we intend to plant in the
city. After all, how can we in good conscience preach collaborative
stewardship and neglect the nation's capitol?
I traveled to Brooklyn, New York a few weeks ago and learned how State
and Private Forestry is working with the city of nearby Greenpoint to
control the spread the Asian long-horned beetle and to replant the
city's urban forest. I learned firsthand just how deeply people who
live in urban areas care for the land when an elderly woman asked me
how the tree she had planted the day she learned of her son's death in
Vietnam, could be replaced. Later that day, a group of Bronx
schoolchildren showed me an abandoned lot that bordered their school
and the Bronx River - once the area's de facto garbage dump - that the
Urban Resources Partnership helped convert the lot to a beautiful park
and environmental education center.
The tears in the eyes of the mother whose son had died and the smiles
on the faces of those school-children made clear to me that from
Washington, D.C. to southeast Alaska to Greenpoint, New York, the
Forest Service is helping people reconnect to the land that sustains
them. Even after just 100 days, I think we are on the right course.
My first week here, I commissioned four teams to review and make
recommendations for improving our relations with the Administration,
Congress, external groups, and internal groups. The teams came up with
suggestions that are helping to define our agenda and improve internal
and external relationships. My suggestion box has been inundated with
excellent ideas. Much of what I have to say this evening and later
this week are based on the recommendations of these groups.
We have improved our working relationships with the Office of
Management and Budget, the Council of Environmental Quality, the
Domestic Policy Council, and others within the Administration.
We are working in a bipartisan and constructive manner to accelerate
the restoration of the health of our National Forests and Grasslands.
This is a cooperative effort that we can replicate across the country.
We are at the table with the White House and helping to chart the
course for high profile Administration priorities such as the Summit
on Volunteerism and the Lake Tahoe Summit.
We redefined installation of a new financial reporting system with the
cooperation and support of the Department of Agriculture.
These are only several of the countless examples of how the Forest
Service cares for the land and serves people. These efforts are not
borne of plans, or initiatives, or even legislative mandates. They
are made possible by the sweat and labor of our hard-working
employees.
The most important resource this agency has is its people. If we have
the wisdom to honor and appreciate each other's strengths then
diversity will become our strength. That is the real message of civil
rights. We want to be the employers of choice. We want our people to
feel valued. Not only will it make us a more productive and effective
organization, it is simply the right thing to do.
So where do we go from here? In preparing this talk, I asked myself
two basic questions.
Will the role of the Forest Service be the same in the next few
decades as it was in the past?
Second, who will be the support base for the Forest Service in the
next few decades and how can we position ourselves to best meet their
needs?
Daniel Botkin, author of Our Natural History, tells about the engineer
who spent a year of his life building a bridge over the Missouri River
and the rest of his career trying to keep the river under the bridge.
I recall that story when I think about the challenges we face. I
think it sometimes reflects our response to change. We say, "Well,
that doesn't really jibe with how it used to be or how I came up
through the system." So we ignore -- or lament -- the changes and act
surprised when we find our bridges no longer cross our rivers and we
find ourselves submerged in controversy.
I know that many yearn for the stability and predictability of the
"old days." Stability and predictability are fascinating words. We
manage natural systems that are inherently unstable and unpredictable,
yet seek to impose on them something they cannot be. The strength of
this nation is our flexibility and adaptability -- that we are quick
to embrace new ideas -- faster in responding to change. Indeed, this
is what has made us the world's leaders in technology, innovation, and
conservation. The only thing we can count on is that the rate of
change will be faster.
Addressing Social and Economic Changes in a Period of Consequences
Winston Churchill said on the eve of World War II, "the era of
procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling
expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are
entering a period of consequences." The fact is that we are the
senior managers in a very large organization with a complex mission in
a complex society. We, you and me, are at the helm of an organization
that is undergoing profound -- truly profound -- changes.
How we respond during this "period of consequences" will determine
whether we are what some call a confused bureaucracy with a muddled
mission or a superstar agency with an unparalleled commitment to
caring for the land and serving people. I know it will be the latter.
I thought of that erstwhile engineer as I examined some recent Forest
Service trends.
In the past ten years, timber harvest on federal lands has gone from
approximately 11 billion board feet to 4 billion. Federal lands used
to supply 25% of the nation's soft wood saw timber; today they supply
about 10%. At the same time, other uses of national forests are
growing rapidly.
For example, in 1980, 560 million recreational visits were made to
national forests. That figure grew to about 860 million by 1996.
Recreation on Forest Service managed lands contributes S112 billion
dollars to state economies and local communities each year.
This is not new information to you but it illustrates major changes in
use patterns of our nation's forests and grasslands.
Jack Ward Thomas once told me a story of how, as a young biologist
working for Texas Fish and Game, he became angry at an inaccurate
comment made by a reporter about a wildlife program Jack was working
on. Jack was infuriated and decided to 'learn that reporter a thing
or two. On the way to track down the reporter, he stopped by his
boss' house and informed him of his plans. His boss sat him down and
said:
"Son, let it go. What you fail to realize is that we are
insignificant people working on insignificant issues that few
significant people care about. Until the time comes that conservation
issues move off of the sport page and onto the front pages, no-one
will care."
In the front section of my paper on Sunday were stories about:
endangered species issues in Riverside, California; potential effects
of a mine on the Okefenokee wildlife refuge; and another on potential
measures by the United States and Canada to protect endangered species
that migrate between the two nations.
I think Jack's old boss would say that conservation -- and
conservationists like us -- have become significant. Seventy-four
percent of Americans consider themselves either active
environmentalists or sympathetic to environmental concerns. We are in
the midst of a profound social change -- a change of values and
priorities. Our challenge is not to wistfully stand idle or, like the
engineer, to try and get that river back under the bridge. Instead,
we need to be leaders in the national dialogue over how to best care
for the land and serve people.
Let me talk for a few moments about the northern spotted owl. In so
many ways, that issue typifies the sort of challenges we see cropping
up in other parts of the country. I don't want to get into the
finger-pointing that so characterized that issue. I just want you to
think back.
Remember how in the late 1980s, people said that protection of the
Northern Spotted Owl under the Endangered Species Act would
economically 'cripple' the Pacific Northwest?
Well, the opposite occurred. From 1988-1994, the economy of the
Pacific Northwest has been remarkably strong and productive. Why?
Because businesses and jobs are moving to those parts of the country
that are the most desirable places to live.
For example, from 1988-1994:
Employment in the Pacific Northwest grew 2.4 times faster than the
rest of the country;
Personal income grew 2.2 times faster;
Average income grew 2.1 times faster; and
Earnings increased 2.7 times faster than the rest of the United
States.
What does this all mean? I think it proves that a healthy environment
is a major stimulus for a healthy economy. Population growth and
economic expansion are occurring in most non-metropolitan counties of
Oregon and Washington. At the same time, many households and families
are suffering from the downturn in many traditional industries. We
need to be sensitive to those who affected by social change and
economic shifts while actively managing our programs to adapt to these
changes.
Changing Priorities
I read in a previous regional program budget recommendation that we
need to decrease funding for ecosystem management, heritage programs,
wildlife habitat, threatened and endangered species while increasing
timber sales, timber roads, forest vegetation, and grazing management.
We are often criticized for such proposals because they seemingly
value one suite of multiple uses -- commodity production -- over other
uses. Now I am not criticizing that Region's proposals because
commodity production has often driven our management decisions. To be
sure, we also developed world class research capabilities and provided
many other multiple use benefits. But, commodities such as timber
drove our budgets, our incentive and reward systems, it even drove a
fair amount of our wildlife and fish habitat work, watershed
restoration, and recreation projects.
Our record of commodity production, is not something to be ashamed of;
quite the contrary. The country owes us a debt of gratitude for our
service. Timber from Forest Service lands helped build homes for
service men and their families after World War II. It fueled the
industrial growth of this nation. It helped to sustain economies and
resource dependent communities.
Today, however, society's priorities are shifting. Our management
priorities must keep pace with our scientific knowledge of ecological
systems and society's values. Our challenge is to link our processes,
rewards, and incentives to the health of the land, to places where we
intersect with societies needs -- not specific program areas. If we
do not, then when specific programs falter -- when society's values
shift -- the agency itself suffers.
My challenge to you is to help make watershed health, ecosystem
health, the health of the land -- whatever you wish to call it -- the
driving force. The production of commodities such as timber will
remain an important use of national forest lands. These are the
things that make multiple use agencies unique and relevant. I stand
firmly behind a viable timber industry that depends on federal lands
for wood fiber. But we cannot allow production to diminish the land's
productive capacity. Nor can we allow our traditional incentives or
budget processes to impede proper silviculture, or range management,
or watershed restoration.
Rather than spending our time in pitched battle over individual and
controversial timber sales, how can we best leverage our resources to
assist in rural economic development, Jobs in the Woods type programs,
and so on?
How can we expand the land owner assistance, stewardship, and
stewardship incentives program to assist the private landowners who
own 70% of the nation's forest land? Private woodland owners, state
foresters, private non-industrial woodlot owners -- this is our future
support base.
We cannot become conservation leaders if we are not first conservation
leaders. How can we more effectively communicate our conservation
message to the 80% of Americans who live in urban areas and who
increasingly will influence both the ecological health and management
priorities of national forests and grasslands. This is our largest
and most rapidly growing support base. How can we design internal
processes that translate to external actions that best meet their
needs?
What I have heard from you and hundreds of other people both within
and outside the agency over the past few months is that the health of
the land must be the unifying factor that brings people together. We
must use all of our available tools to shift our priorities, establish
new processes, and create new incentives.
Resource and Management Priorities
All of the goods and services that we provide to the American people
are dependent on healthy lands and waters. The health of the land
must be our overriding priority! As resource professionals, we must
be able to explain to people, the existing condition, desired state,
and trend of the following resource priorities:
water quality and quantity,
riparian health,
forest ecosystem health,
rangeland ecosystem health,
recreation, and
partnerships.
In the next few years, we have some unique opportunities to establish
processes and incentives that track more closely with maintaining the
health, diversity, and productivity of the land. For example, over
the next three years, 78 forest plans -- plans for fully one half of
our forests and grasslands -- will be revised. How can we use this
process as a framework for implementing our priorities?
Additionally, we are in the process of drafting a strategic plan for
the Forest Service as required by the Government Performances and
Results Act. Within the broad context of the Government Performances
and Results Act, we must develop performance measures for Forest
Supervisors, Research, State and Private Forestry, and so on, that
relate to maintaining healthy ecological systems. This will be the
most significant expression of our commitment to the American people.
Consider water. Now this may sound glib, but it is not. "Gravity
works cheap and never takes a day off." The end results of most of
our management actions are reflected by the health of our rivers,
streams, and lakes. I want you to work with your people to determine
the appropriate characteristics of healthy aquatic ecosystems and to
hold them accountable for their improvement.
For example, on national forests and grasslands:
Certain keystone species of fish, wildlife, and plants can be used as
surrogates for general biotic integrity.
Properly functioning riparian areas have a disproportionate value in
determining ecosystem health.
The health of fire dependent ecosystems, particularly given public
debate and interest, are critically important.
Erosion -- concerns over which contributed to the creation of the
eastern national forests and western grasslands -- can reflect the
effect of management activities on the land.
The idea here is not to institute a new layer of process and
bureaucracy over our management actions. Land-based accountability is
intrinsic to responsible resource stewardship.
Conclusion
Our challenge is to work with people to implement meaningful strategic
national goals and on-the-ground measures that reflect these and other
appropriate issues. Once developed, we must then communicate to
people their importance and begin to build the public support base,
financial systems, budget processes, and management incentives to
accomplish these priorities. Then, and only then, can we say with
certainty that we are truly caring for the land and serving people.
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