Forest policy reformed: A United States perspective

Forest Policy and Economics 9 (2006) 261 – 273 www.elsevier.com/locate/forpol

Review

Forest policy reformed: A United States perspective Frederick W. Cubbage a,*, David H. Newman b,1 a

Department of Forestry, Box 8008, 3120 Jordan Hall, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-8008, United States b Warnell School of Forest Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, United States Received 5 July 2004; received in revised form 30 May 2005; accepted 1 July 2005

Abstract It appears that United States federal forest policy in the last three decades has been relatively static, with only modest changes in laws being made by Congress, and most federal policy-making occurring through budgetary allocation decisions. However, more fundamental forest policy shifts have occurred in international forestry, in environmental nongovernment organizations (ENGOs), and in the private sector. In the 1990s, the executive branch and state and local governments have become more important; international agreements have had significant impacts at defining the policy agenda; and environmental nongovernment organizations (ENGOs) have become more powerful, both at influencing agency implementation and as land managers themselves. In addition, corporations have actively pursued proactive environmental agendas and voluntarily adopted forest practice guidelines that often exceed those that could have been achieved by government mandates. Government programs have renewed purchases of forest land or of conservation easements. However, state forestry and development interest groups, market pressures, and limited government budgets continue to limit regulatory expansion. The tension between commodity and preservation interests has not waned, and forest policy responses have become more dynamic, extending beyond the traditional views of strictly government policy-making. The breadth of the public policy responses has increased, and the introduction of important new private and corporate forest policies and programs has greatly changed the impact on private forest land management. D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Forest policy; Policy processes; Sustainable forest management; Forest certification; Environment

1. Introduction In the last decade, forest resource policy has changed substantially in terms of dominant policy * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 919 515 7789. E-mail addresses: fred [email protected] (F.W. Cubbage), [email protected] (D.H. Newman). 1 Tel.: +1 706 542 8356. 1389-9341/$ - see front matter D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.forpol.2005.07.008

processes, principal interest groups and stakeholders involved, and substantive policy decisions and outcomes. Policy has been defined as a purposive course of action or inaction that an actor or set of actors takes to deal with an issue or problem of public concern (Anderson et al., 1984). Traditionally, United States forest policy has dealt with issues and problems acted on by the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government, at the federal, state, or local

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level. Public policy statements and implementation commit the authority of government to a course of action or inaction over time (Ellefson, 1992; Cubbage et al., 1993). Public policy has at various times been described as a rational comprehensive policy process that identifies fundamental issues and enacts and implements reasoned laws and decisions to resolve issues (Dunn, 1981; Anderson et al., 1984). In contrast, Lindblom (1959) proposed muddling through by small incremental changes as the dominant paradigm of how public policies are made. Etzioni (1967) proposed a combination of these two approaches, which he termed mixed scanning, as a better characterization of the policy-making process. This paradigm posits that short-run incremental changes are most common, but that rational, fundamental social innovation does occur periodically, and forms the basis for subsequent incremental policy implementation. As we begin the new century, a mixture of these three theories remains valid for applications to forest policy, but the context certainly has changed. As a result, the traditional view of forest policy may need considerable revision. Forest policy is still formally made and implemented by government at all levels, by budgeting and rule-making, even if not by lawmaking. But with few exceptions, incrementalism (Lindblom, 1959) has dominated how national forestry laws have changed, and the increments are generally small. On the other hand, many states have been very active in forest policy formation, and rapidly emerging public policy efforts by private corporations and environmental organizations have led to the development of private sector policies and systems designed to respond to increasing public concern and pressure. A much greater importance is now placed on corporate forest policymaking on the use of more market-based incentives and marketing tools to achieve forest conservation. Thus, we do have major forest policy reforms periodically, but they seldom come from easily anticipated directions. We characterize these changes as policy reform. Policy reform has been a mantra of interest groups seeking change. Various dictionaries define reform as to amend or improve form, or to remove faults or abuses, or to restore to purity or excellence. One might question whether the policy changes summar-

ized here are restoring purity, but they are certainly changing the form of forest policy-making and forest policy outcomes. National U.S. forest policy seemed to be relatively static for much of the 1980s and 1990s, with incrementalism dominating law-making and federal budgets and agency implementation the key to forest practices. More ferment occurred at the state levels, however, and international agreements were forged on sustainable development that would slowly affect U.S. policies. At the same time, major new private sector and ENGO forest policy approaches were developed that have fostered significant changes in forest management. The arrival of the George W. Bush administration revived federal legislative efforts for national forests, consistent with the mixed-scanning model of public policy. This paper details the salient issues and trends that have reformed U.S. forest policy since the 1980s, providing a brief update on textbooks by Ellefson (1992) and Cubbage et al. (1993). Our review helps clarify the status of current forest policy formation and its implications for forestry practices. Selecting the most important issues that have reformed policy is of course difficult and subject to some debate, like all policy. For this review, we focus on major policy shifts and trends that have attained a long-term public agenda status level, as defined by Cobb and Elder (1972), and that have affected millions of acres of forests, and involved millions to billions of dollars of programmatic funds. Several new trends make United States forest resource policy different today. These include the ascendance of international forestry and trade in policy making; the greening of corporate America; the expansion of the federal executive branch and increase in state prerogatives in forest policy-making; the increasing regulatory scope of agency authority based on existing laws; and significant changes in industrial, ENGO and government land ownership, protection, and management.

2. International forestry and trade 2.1. Sustainable forest management Public demands for greater conservation of forests have led to international calls for enhanced, sustain-

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able forest management (SFM). A host of local to international events has set the expanding agenda for sustainable forest management. The Brundtland Report on Sustainable Development, which was issued in 1987, was the modern catalyst for discussions of global sustainability (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). After the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) was held in Rio de Janeiro, a steadily increasing set of international policies began to influence U.S. forest policies. At the so-called "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janiero, 144 countries developed and adopted a non-binding Statement of Forest Principles that recognized the importance of sustainable forest management for all types of forests (National Association of State Foresters, 1997). Of the nine SFM criteria and indicator initiatives in the world, the Montreal Process (2003a) is geographically the largest, encompassing most of the world’s temperate and boreal forests, and 60% of all of the world’s forests. The Montreal Process signatories now include Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, the Russian Federation, the U.S.A., and Uruguay. Member countries have agreed on a comprehensive set of seven criteria and 67 indicators for the conservation and sustainable management of temperate and boreal forests (Montreal Process, 2003a,b). The seven Montreal Process criteria for sustainable forest management of forest ecosystems are (1) conservation of biological diversity; (2) maintenance of the productive capacity of forest ecosystems; (3) maintenance of forest ecosystem health and vitality; (4) conservation and maintenance of soil and water resources; (5) maintenance of forest contribution to global carbon cycles; (6) maintenance and enhancement of long-term socio-economic benefits to meet the needs of societies; and (7) development of the legal, institutional, and economic framework for forest conservation and sustainable management. The National Report on Sustainable Forests (USDA Forest Service, 2004) summarized the U.S. efforts to monitor the seven criteria and 67 indicators of the Montreal Process. The Montreal Process and other SFM processes reflect a strong international and national consensus to achieve sustainable forestry, including forest land retention, enhancing forest productivity for timber and

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other commodity outputs, protection of social benefits, and provision of undiminished environmental benefits. Every sector, including forest products manufacturing groups, professional foresters, and environmental interest groups, favor sustainable forests. Public opinion favors sustainable development, at least in principle. National governments throughout the world have promised to pursue sustainable forests through extensive international treaties and agreements and continual discussions through the United Nations Forum on Forests (U.S. Department of State, 2005). Through a series of agreements and annual meetings, participating countries in the 1999 forum agreed to report on 120 proposals on how to improve forest conditions in their countries, as well as on 150 proposals from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Forests. In addition, market pressures demanding green products, or even green certification, have been slowly building market-based incentives for sustainable forests. These international agreements and protocols have been slow to be perceived and integrated into local U.S. forest policies. However, they do provide an important benchmark for forest certification and for federal and state legislation. They provide a mechanism that international and national interest groups can use to set the broad policy agenda that we expect to eventually filter down to other public or private forest policies. In particular, international agreements have contributed a large number of widely accepted principles and objectives that have been incorporated into major U.S. and world forest certification efforts, which are being applied at the local level. 2.2. International trade International trade issues also have played central roles in forest policies in the U.S and elsewhere. Foremost among these in the United States is the ongoing debate over Canadian lumber imports to the United States. Throughout the last two decades, Canada has exported large amounts of lumber to the United States, which has been opposed by U.S. lumber manufacturers and trade associations, and resulted in an import tax in the 1990s. The trade associations state that Canadian lumber is subsidized by low stumpage prices on public lands, which are b. . .destroying the U.S. lumber industry, threatening its workers with

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mounting unemployment, and denying many tree farmers a market for their timber crops.Q (Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, 2005). A variable lumber import duty was re-instituted for Canadian lumber imports in the 2001 by the U.S. Department of Commerce, which amounted to an effective rate of 27% on Canadian lumber (Ministry of Forests, 2005). The proceeds from the Canadian lumber import duties were being held in escrow to determine whether the U.S. or Canada would receive them, and had reached more than $4 billion by 2005. During this time, Canada appealed to the World Trade Organization (WTO) for relief and was granted partial support for its claim of unfair countervailing duties. Subsequently, the U.S. Department of Commerce recommended that the lumber duties be cut about in half to 13% (Forest Conservation Portal, 2005), but that decision remained under appeal as of 2005. This debate covers the greatest volume of trade and the most funds of any forest products dispute in the world and is indicative of issues with forest products trade. Related trade issues are occurring in the furniture industry, where China has taken a large share of the U.S. domestic market since 2000, costing the U.S. thousands of jobs. Similarly, significant amounts of the increase in timber production in the world are moving off-shore from the U.S. to fast-growing plantations in the southern hemisphere, with the wood or products being imported back to the U.S. International trade also served as the catalyst for other public and private sector forest policy developments. Environmental groups in Europe and in the United States used trade as a key lever in demanding environmentally responsible forest practices. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Treaty developed an accord for protecting rare and endangered plant and animal species, via lists of species whose trade was prohibited or restricted. Restricted products include those from wildlife, such as elephant ivory, and wood, such as mahogany (U.S. Department of State, 2005). Forest certification, reduced impact logging, and other international private sector approaches have been used to seek and verify improved forest protection and management, and international trade was used as the lever for these reforms. Various types of environmental management systems and forest certification systems have been adopted by the forest

industry to demonstrate compliance with desirable forest practices that meet economic, social, and environmental goals—the pillars of sustainable development and sustainable forest management (Rametsteiner and Simula, 2003). The international Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) was created by ENGOs in 1993 to encourage and certify responsible forest management practices. This served as one means for private and public forest owners to demonstrate acceptable forest management practices and prompted the creation of competing forest certification systems, including the U.S. Sustainable Forestry Initiative in 1995, the Pan-European Forest Council in 1998, and the Canadian Standards Association in 1996. By 2005, forest certification systems in the world had expanded to cover about 225 million ha (Sustainable Forestry Initiative, 2005; Forest Stewardship Council, 2005), which comprises 5.8% of the world’s 3.9 billion ha of forests (FAO, 2003).

3. Corporate green revolution 3.1. Public pressure International and U.S. pressure, from the public in general and environmental groups and activists specifically, has prompted the forest products industry to adopt a much stronger commitment to environmental protection. Public opinion surveys consistently show that individual support for environmental protection spans most demographic lines, including political party, age, and ethnicity. Most major firms have developed positive, proactive environmental programs and public relations programs to convince the buying public that they are environmentally responsible at least, and are even competing for recognition as leaders in the field (Miller, 2002; Little, 2004). In forestry, part of this commitment has been developed by wood products and paper products retailers in order to avoid public protests in their stores or at their headquarters and negative press campaigns by environmental activist groups such as the Rainforest Action Network, Dogwood Alliance, or ForestEthics. Pressure from retailers in Europe has led to requirements in the United States and other exporting countries to meet European environmental standards. ENGO pressure for social changes has been applied

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not only in the area of forest management, but also in relation to the labor, worker safety, and environmental practices of clothing manufacturers, chemical companies, and automobiles (Sasser, 2003; Ianuzzi, 2002). 3.2. U.S. forest certification The two major U.S. competing programs dealing with forest certification are the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) of the American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA). As of 2005, SFI had 18.5 million ha certified in the United States and 31.7 million ha in Canada (Sustainable Forestry Initiative, 2005). FSC had 5.6 million ha in the U.S.A., and 51.3 million ha total in the world (Forest Stewardship Council, 2005). The Meridian Institute (2001) noted that FSC: b. . .began with a strong NGO focus on environmental and social values of natural forest ecosystems to which it adds an important economic viability dimension.Q FSC was b. . .founded in 1993. . .to encourage the consuming public to reward exemplary forest management of industrial, private, government, and community-owned forests.Q Furthermore, FSC has a b. . .desire to provide market rewards through the labeling of forest products with a logo designed to distinguish products derived from lands certified as complying with a global set of Principles and Criteria of exemplary forest stewardship and management.Q Furthermore, The Meridian Institute (2001) summarized that SFI: b. . .began with a strong industry focus on forest lands that were acquired or owned for the production of forest products, to which it adds an important environmental dimension.Q SFI was b. . .launched in 1994 by the American Forest and Paper Association in response to sagging public attitudes about the management of the nation’s forests. . .It has evolved into a program that promotes third party certification of forestry practices of member companies and licensees.Q Furthermore, SFI has a b. . .philosophy of a da rising tide that raises all boats.T It consists of a set of standards aimed at all aspects of the forest industry from landowner to producer and it establishes a baseline for performance that builds on the concepts of sustainable forestry.Q

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Other programmatic differences between FSC and SFI exist in addition to the standards enumerated above (Meridian Institute, 2001). FSC is international in scope and governance; SFI is a U.S.-oriented program, with a major extension to Canada. FSC is a membership organization with a General Assembly and a Board of Directors. SFI was created by the American Forest and Paper Association and now has a separate Sustainable Forestry Board, making it more independent. In 2001, FSC International received 85% of its funding from private foundations, and 15% from membership and accreditation fees. In the U.S., 100% of FSC funding came from private foundations. In 2001, SFI received 82% of its funds from member dues and contributions to the State Implementation Committee and 18% from grants and revenues from meetings, publications, and the licensee program. The report noted that philosophical and application differences remain between these two principal systems, but that they were more similar in their application on the ground. FSC was initiated by a partnership of environmental NGOs and foundations. FSC has a strong environmental and social orientation and serves as a benchmark with respect to issues such as biological diversity, social issues, forest plantations, genetically modified organisms, and public participation. In total, there are 10 FSC Principles and 56 Criteria. In addition, there are more than 200 bbulletedQ standards that certifying organizations use to provide details as to how the Principles and Criteria should be measured. This provides a detailed and rigorous set of standards for measuring and guiding forest management (Forest Stewardship Council, 2000, 2001, 2003). The SFI program was launched in 1995 by the American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA) with the objective of improving the image of the forest products industry and the practice of forestry, especially with respect to environmental issues and protection. Every participating AF&PA firm must comply with the SFI standards, and participation has been extended to non-members through a licensing agreement. The SFI criteria require that a set of more than 100 indicators be met to successfully complete thirdparty verification. These are updated periodically (Sustainable Forestry Initiative, 2004, 2005). In addition to FSC and SFI, there are two other principal forest certification schemes in the United States and many

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more worldwide. The other two principal U.S. certification schemes are the industry-sponsored American Tree Farm System (2005) program, with about 12 million ha, and the National Woodland Owners Association-sponsored Green Tag Forestry (2005) program, with 27,751 ha as of 2004. In total then, with the four systems of SFI, FSC, ATFS, and Green Tag, the U.S. certified about 36 million ha of forests. This amounts to about 12% of it total forest area of 302 million ha (Smith et al., 2001), or 18% of its timberland area, which probably is the more relevant base for forest management certification programs. In addition, virtually no federal forest lands are certified, so about one-quarter of all private forest lands are certified, and almost two-thirds of the forest industry lands are certified. The plethora of forest certification systems, the desire of the forest products firms to be recognized as meeting widely acceptable environmental standards, their need to do so to meet building products retailers needs for avoiding direct protests, and the ENGO participation in the forest certification schemes have led to a rapid escalation of the certification arms race. Each system is trying to maximize its enrollment area, its recognition for environmental protection, and its label recognition. The resulting interaction of market forces, ENGO leverage, and industry acceptance has led to forest certification rules and regulations that are much stricter than those that would ever be explicitly adopted in federal or state laws or, in many cases, even promulgated by government agencies (Cashore et al., 2003, 2004, 2005). One outcome of this competitive activity is the increasing convergence of the two main certifying organizations in the U.S. The SFI has become greener over time, as environmental groups who serve on its advisory board aggressively pursue more strict environmental standards or threaten that they will have to resign to protect their image. At the same time, FSC has become more pragmatic in their operations, especially in implementation, if not on paper. FSC has certified many forests planted on cutover natural forest stands that regenerated on old fields, despite their written proscriptions against converting bnaturalQ forests to plantations. This race for market recognition and share has made the politics of forestry and environmental protection vastly different, and is the core factor making private forest practice guidelines and

private forest policy crucial, rather than just public or government policy. This competition to be greener and have better conditions for workers or natives (and hence more socially acceptable) has been pursued in other industry sectors as well, such as apparel and automobiles (Miller, 2002).

4. Federal executive branch and state agency expansion Congress enacted many new, major environmental laws throughout the 1970s and was supported by Presidents Nixon, albeit reluctantly, and Carter, much more willingly. The first major modern federal environmental policy was the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. This established a process for scientific review of Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) or Environmental Assessments (EAs) for actions on federal lands or by federal agencies that had a major effect on the environment. This was followed shortly by President Nixon’s creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1969, effective January 1, 1970. Thereafter, a plethora of new laws to implement this heightened environmental concern were passed. These included the 1972 Amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA or the Clean Water Act), The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) of 1973, The Endangered Species Act of 1974 (ESA, amended in 1978), The Renewable Natural Resources Act (RPA) of 1974, The National Forest Management Act of 1976 (NFMA), the Air Quality Act of 1970, the Clean Water Act Amendments of 1977, the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1980, and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA, or Superfund Law). This flurry of environmental legislation and new policies remains unprecedented in our history, and set the stage for decades of administrative agency implementation, rule making, interpretation, and enforcement. However, since 1980 and until only recently, only two major new revisions of federal environmental laws have occurred—the Clean Air Act of 1990 and the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) of 1986. Instead, in the 1990s, incremental implementation by the Executive Branch characterized forest and environmental policy.

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4.1. Federal executive branch The executive branch became dominant in making federal forest policies in the 1990s via national initiatives, executive orders, and international agreements, and an increasing role for the states in making forest policies. New interest groups contributed to this evolution as well. In the 1970s, Congress provided copious and detailed laws and provisions to achieve these goals, while increasing funding only moderately for the agencies that were left to implement them. They also left much of the implementation, often as unfunded mandates, to the states while providing significant new opportunities for public input and redress regarding agency implementation. Based on this platform, all the groups involved in the policy process have spent the last three decades debating, interpreting, and implementing those federal and ancillary state laws. For example, the FWPCA was expanded through interest group advocacy, court cases and agency initiatives to cover (1) rural, agricultural, forestry, and mining nonpoint sources; (2) wetlands as well as rivers and harbors; (3) best management practices for agriculture, forestry, and mining; (4) state nonpoint source planning; (5) forestry operations in wetlands; and (6) and total maximum daily load (TMDL) limitations. The ESA’s protections expanded to define taking of a species more broadly, continued increases in species listings, and led to the development of habitat conservation plans that would allow landowners to manage their land to protect endangered species, yet receive a reasonable, if not maximum, income. Federal water quality, air quality, endangered species, and coastal zone regulations also affect public and private forest lands and are implemented on private lands by the states through their parallel laws and agencies. At least until the Bush administration began in 2001, those who opposed environmental rules had little success in persuading Congress or state legislatures at rolling back rules, although they have blocked rigorous implementation at the agency level through direct opposition or budget control. Since becoming President, George W. Bush and USDA Assistant Secretary Mark Rey helped foster Forest Service efforts to at least prevent wasteful forest losses to natural causes such as forest fires, insects, or diseases.

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Opponents have characterized his policies more harshly, suggesting that the administration wanted to reduce the rigor of federal environmental rules that are perceived to limit economic opportunities to use forest and other natural resources (e.g., Moving Ideas, 2004). 4.2. National forests During his tenure, President Clinton and the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Jim Lyons, dominated national forest policy. This included appointment of the first Chief of the Forest Service from outside the agency in more than 80 years, a primary focus on protection and preservation of western forests, and the direct involvement of the President and the Assistant Secretary in several major studies and initiatives on the western national forests (e.g., the western spotted owl study and the Columbia River Basin study). These efforts focused on environmental protection and ecosystem management and eventually led to the decline of the Forest Service timber harvests from a high of more than 10 billion board ft/year under the Reagan administration to less than 2 billion board ft/year by the end of the Clinton administration. Under the auspices of the NFMA, two committees of scientists appointed during the Democratic Clinton and Carter administrations made sweeping recommendations for management of the national forests. Both these committees based their recommendations primarily on biological criteria or and ecosystem management principles, which were then implemented by USDA Forest Service regulations (Hoberg, 2004). However, the George W. Bush administration revisited this issue soon after he was elected, and released a new final planning rule in 2005. Its focus was much more pragmatic and oriented to streamline the planning process; to make planning more adaptable; to strengthen the role of science; to strengthen collaboration with the public; and to reaffirm sustainable management (Federal Register, 2005). The rule states that it bembodies a paradigm shift in land management. . .Q and that b. . .the Forest Service believes that it is time to think differently about National Forest System (NFS) planning and management.Q For the first time, the rule incorporated an Environmental Management System (EMS) process

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to be used during the planning process to improve performance and accountability. It also reduced the opportunity for public input, eliminated the need for major environmental impact assessments to be performed on each periodic national forest plan, and intended to expedite plan preparation and forest management actions on the ground. The jury is still out on the success of this new planning rule, but it has been supported by commodity groups and local interests, and sharply criticized by national environmental groups. Litigation opposing this rule has been filed in court already (Defenders of Wildlife, 2004), and more challenges are likely. The most salient example of a major new federal law occurred as the administration and the new Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth led efforts to increase timber harvests for forest health concerns and to avoid catastrophic forest fires. These efforts began with the Healthy Forests Initiative that was launched in August 2002. This initiative was at least partially triggered by massive wildfires in the western U.S. in 2002 in Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, and New Mexico, and buttressed by similar campaign fires in California in 2003. In 2002 and 2003, these fires burned nearly 4.5 million ha, destroyed 6800 structures and homes, and caused the death of 51 firefighters and 22 civilians (White House, 2004). The objective of the initiative was to remove small underbrush and trees and thin stands so that they would be less susceptible to wildfire. The initiative intends to make thinning and harvesting easier by reducing unneeded paperwork and processes, thus shortening the time between when a hazardous fuel project identified and it is implemented on the ground (Healthy Forests, 2005). The Healthy Forests Initiative was the precursor to the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003. This act was the first new major U.S. forestry legislation passed since NFMA in 1976. The Healthy Forests Act was promoted by supporters in order to (1) strengthen public participation in developing highpriority forest health projects; (2) reduce complexity of environmental analysis and allow federal agencies to use the best science for management; (3) provide a more effective appeals process for early public participation, and (4) issuing clear guidance for court action against forest health projects (White House, 2004). Opponents of the law, however, perceived it as weakening the National Forest Management Act,

providing for inadequate emphasis on protecting residents; increasing fire risk through increased logging; encouraging widespread and less careful timber harvests; and reducing public input that might oppose such harvests, as well as the opportunity to challenge the legitimacy of the fuel reduction projects in the courts (Environmental Media Services, 2005). 4.3. Farm bills Another key component of federal forest policy is its effect on nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) lands. The USDA Forest Service has a branch of State and Private Forestry that directs Forest Service programs for NIPFs. Perhaps just as importantly, the 5-year Farm Bills contain a host of subsidy and regulatory provisions that apply to private farm and forest lands. The use of the Farm Bills to explicitly address forestry issues since 1986 is a policy development that has had significant impacts on production and conservation. The 2002 Farm Bill, titled the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, authorized several programs directly supporting forestry, and many other broad programs for private forest owners. The Forestry Title (VIII) authorized a Forest Land Enhancement Program (FLEP) as a cost–share program for a range of forest conservation practices, including planning, planting, management, and recreation. It also supported a community and private land fire assistance program, renewable resources extension funding, a sustainable forestry outreach initiative, the USDA Forest Service Office of International Forestry, and reaffirmed the importance of the McIntire-Stennis Cooperative Forestry Research Program (Pinchot Institute for Conservation, 2002). The FLEP program funding was eliminated in 2004 and 2005, so this program has provided only modest assistance to NIPF owners, but the other programs have remained stable. Probably more significantly, Title II of the Farm Bill authorized a suite of conservation incentive programs that have remained funded at reasonable levels. Programs most relevant to forestry include the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP), Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP), and Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) (Harkin, 2005). Furthermore, the Forest Legacy program, which was first authorized in the 1990 Farm Bill, provides federal

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funds for acquiring conservation easements or other development restrictions on private land to require sustainable forestry practices and protect other natural resource values. Its funding increased greatly after FY 2000, to more than $50 million per year (USDA Forest Service, 2005). 4.4. State forest policy Expansion of agency rules and regulations at the state level has been perhaps even more dramatic, though not as well documented. While federal laws provided broad mandates, actual implementation of water and air quality laws has been delegated to the states. Some states have been very aggressive in implementing such laws, and others rather lax. The West Coast states of Oregon, Washington, and California have all had state forest practice acts since the 1940s. Alaska and Idaho added such laws in the 1970s, and all states have become much stricter since then. All western state forest practice acts require notification or permits before timber harvesting can occur, and California requires a timber harvesting plan prepared by a licensed forester. All have strict reforestation, stream protection, and water quality guidelines; and all are moving toward broader fish and wildlife protection and greater consideration of landscape and cumulative effects. Several eastern states also have passed or strengthened state forest practices or cutting practices acts since the 1970s, including Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, West Virginia, Virginia, and Florida. Virtually every other state in the East has regulatory means to enforce water quality protection through their water quality statutes, although they do not specifically address forestry (Ellefson et al., 1995). As of 2003, state agencies regulating private forestry employed more than 1000 FTEs dedicated to regulatory programs, with an annual nationwide state regulatory budget of about $27 million (Ellefson et al., 2004). In a survey of U.S. and Canadian forestry laws used to implement sustainable timber harvesting practices, Kilgore and Blinn (2004) found that technical assistance, education, and cost–share programs account for 88% of all programs to encourage forest landowners to employ recommended best management practices. Technical assistance and education programs were

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used most often and ranked them as being most efficient for forest landowners and foresters, respectively. Ellefson et al. (2003) surveyed all state agencies related to forestry in 2002. They found that state agencies affecting forestry are located at virtually all levels of state and local government, and the state’s lead forestry agency is often only a small part of the agencies affecting forests. Forestry agencies do focus on forests, yet fisheries and wildlife, water, and parks agencies also may affect forests significantly. Accordingly, this dispersion of agencies and responsibilities does lead to public confusion and lack of integrated resource management, which is inadequately addressed by interagency coordination. 4.5. The courts The judiciary also has influenced regulatory expansion, while at the same time limiting agency management discretion. Beginning as early as the landmark Monongahela decision that eventually halted clearcutting on National Forests in the East in 1975, the courts have become involved in interpreting permissible actions on federal lands (Fairfax and Achterman, 1977). The National Forest Management Act (NFMA) of 1976 authorized a full range of management alternatives for national forests, but also circumscribed managerial discretion through extensive requirements for public involvement and protection of biodiversity. Federal managers must conform closely to the law or risk having their actions halted or reversed by court orders. Malmsheimer et al. (2004) found that judicial review of national forest management intensified from 1970 to 2001, although the Forest Service won most of these appeals. NEPA was the basis for most litigation, although NFMA and ESA cases were increasing. Courts also were extensively involved in roadless area rules from the Clinton administration (Society of American Foresters, 2003). Courts have been directly involved in determining the extent of all federal environmental laws. Court decisions have mandated expansion of federal jurisdictional wetlands beyond the traditional navigable waters under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act and expansion of Section 208 nonpoint source pollution controls to all lands, not just designated urban areas. Environmental groups have used court cases as an

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active strategy since the 1970s to extend the scope of the new federal environmental laws. This is not a new aspect of forest policy in the 1990s, but certainly has been implemented with increasing frequency and success. Examples include the requirement of the Clean Water Act National Pollution Discharge Elimination (NPDES) permits for aerial spraying of pesticides in Oregon; a narrowing of the silvicultural exemption for NPDES permits for culverts in California; expansion of the definition of a btakingQ of an endangered species under the ESA (Morford and Corbin, 2005); and expansion of citizens’ right to sue under the Clean Water Act (Robinson, 2005).

5. Changing land ownership and rights Forest ownership trends in the United States have changed moderately in the last two decades, and a variety of new arrangements are being made, such as conservation easements and payments for environmental services, which alter the bundle of ownership rights in land. The USDA Forest Service has not released final documents, but their periodic national woodland owner survey indicated that public land ownership remained fairly constant in the U.S., with an increase from 224 million acres in 1994 to 228 million acres in 2002. The survey indicates that there has been some increase in federal lands in particular, despite the public perceptions of decreased federal roles. Family-owned forest land ownership increased from about 233 million acres in 1994 to 262 million acres in 2002; business-owned land decreased from 150 million acres to 131 million acres during this period (Butler and Leatherberry, 2004). While it does not show up in these aggregate ownership numbers, there also has been a large increase in the area of timberland purchased by timber management organizations (TIMOS), and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) that include funds from pension funds, insurance companies, banks, and private financial consortiums. TIMOs now own more than 5 million ha of forest land in the U.S., and REITs own about 2.5 million ha, and this area continues to increase rapidly as forest products firms divest timberlands (Timber Mart-South, 2005). Large ENGOs such as The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International and more locally

focused land trusts have become active purchasing and managing forests, grasslands, swamps, and other important natural areas. These organizations purchase land or the development rights to the land, either through fee simple ownership or some form of permanent or temporary conservation easements. This has paralleled a renewed effort on the part of state and local governments, and occasionally on the part of the federal government, to purchase valuable natural areas or the development rights in those areas ENGOs also advocate actively for government land conservation policies (Albers et al., 2004). In addition, they have added significantly to their efforts to advocate renewed government ownership and budget expenditures to acquire and protect important natural areas. As of 2004, the U.S had about 3.6 million ha of land under conservation-based fee simple ownership or in conservation easements (Land Trust Alliance, 2005). Land management has complemented the traditional ENGO role of policy advocacy and education, has helped make private, or at least non-profit nongovernment, policies very important in the management of natural resources. The Nature Conservancy (TNC), for example, protects more than 5 million ha in the U.S. and another 40 million ha internationally. Several federal cost share or stewardship programs also focus on these actions in order to reserve lands with important natural characteristics, such as WRP, CRP, and EQIP. In addition to conservation easements, direct payments and markets for protection of environmental or ecosystem services have been developing rapidly. Direct payments may be made to landowners from governments by a few buyers, such as electric power companies to purchase carbon storage credits from landowners who plant trees. Alternatively, large groups of people can exchange credits in environmental services in newly developed markets, such as those for wetlands mitigation credits or carbon in the Chicago Climate Exchange. These payments/markets are intended to protect environmental services through payments or market trade for protection of those services. These have ranged from payments or markets to protect watersheds, maintain biodiversity and protect endangered species, store carbon, mitigate wetlands losses, or provide other benefits. Total funding is small to date for most sectors, but wetlands banking in the U.S. has involved more than $1 billion

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to date (Bayon, 2004), and carbon markets are promising under the Kyoto Climate Change Agreement, even though the U.S. is not a signatory. Many international private banks are beginning to include such environmental protection measures or offsets as requirements in their loans now as well. The benefits of ENGO, government, and private sector management of natural areas include the preservation of important natural ecosystems and the provision of an active market for those values. They also serve as examples of improved management and research about those systems. These conservation efforts frequently protect rare or threatened habitats for flora and fauna. They allow both ENGOs and the public to learn more about the application of sound science and management to those ecosystems. Land ownership and management have tended to be more common with more moderate ENGOs. This may be attributed to the fact that the ENGOs need to be moderate to obtain individual and corporate gifts to pay for the land, and perhaps to the fact that land ownership and management responsibilities leaven one’s view of what is realistic and possible, especially given a fixed budget. An indication of this conservatism is that the ENGOs that own land have been among the most active in the corporate boardroom and on the SFI External Review Panel. They remain vocal and effective advocates of environmental protection on their lands and on industrial and nonindustrial private forest land. They bring a more pragmatic view of resource management to the table and believe in working within the political and market system to achieve conservation goals.

6. Conclusions The preceding review provides details on the breadth of change in forest policy in the United States over the last few decades. Traditional policy process and institutional paradigms are still relevant, but the context within which they have been applied is dramatically different. More participants have contributed to the making of forest policy, and new policymaking strategies are becoming common. Since the 1980s, incrementalism prevailed in most federal forest policies, but sweeping new changes in private forest policies have occurred in the last decade. In addition,

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the George W. Bush administration spearheaded passage of a new national forestry law and a new paradigm for forest planning in 2003 and 2005. These are at least fundamental, non-incremental policy decisions; implementation will be crucial in their final policy outcomes. In the 1990s, the executive branch and state and local governments have become more important; international agreements have had significant impacts at defining the policy agenda; and ENGOs have become more powerful, both at influencing agency implementation to protect environmental values, as land managers themselves, and in developing and promoting payments and markets for environmental services. In addition, corporations have actively pursued proactive environmental agendas and imposed forest practice and forest certification guidelines on themselves that often exceed those that could have been achieved by government mandates. Renewed government policy instruments now focus on outright fee simple purchase of important forest lands or on partial acquisition of the development or conservation rights to a piece of property. In sum, these significant changes have made the implementation and effects of forest policy far more dynamic and interesting for both practitioners and academics. Individuals and interest groups always seek public policies that support their values and their pocketbook. It seemed that federal, or at least congressional, policy-making was quiescent in the 1980s and 1990s, with only incremental policy changes. However, international forest policies, private sector and ENGO initiatives, and state forest policy-making mushroomed, and underwent fundamental policy changes consistent with the mixedscanning policy theory. Congressional National Forest policy underwent fundamental changes in 2003 with the strong support of the Bush administration. Thus, for three decades, forest policy-making has been changing continuously, but the actors have shifted dramatically depending on how individuals and interest groups were effective in pursuing their individual and collective self-interests and values. The challenge for the future of public and corporate forest policy is to help meet the widely accepted, implicit economic, social, and environmental goals of sustainable development to meet the needs of people today without compromising or diminishing the abil-

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ity of forests to meet the needs of people in the future. Forest policy has become increasingly important in identifying what we can and will do in forest protection, management, and practices. The rules by which the game of forestry has been played, and the groups and the power they have in playing the game, shift continually. It will be up to us as professionals and analysts to better understand these changes; blend this knowledge with our technical expertise and personal values to ensure that we play well and influentially in determining what our future forests will become; and develop the policies that will determine that future. This certainly will be an enduring and interesting challenge.

Acknowledgments The authors thank James Granskog, Southern Forest Experiment Station; Daowei Zhang, Auburn University; Toddi Steelman, North Carolina State University; and the reviewers of Journal of Forest Policy and Economics for helpful reviews.

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