Transcript Reno range talk July 2001 - Sustainable Rangelands Roundtable

The Importance and Potential
Benefits of Sustainability
Indicators
Sustainable Development Issues
Team/International Programs
Robert L. Hendricks
July 23, 2001
Who am I and why is my
perspective of any value?
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Forest planner for 20 years
Worked in International Programs 10 years
Forest Service historian for three years
One foot in each scale—local, national, international
My talk will focus on
• What we will get from C&I, not
• What they want or will get from C&I
Refresh on Background
• The Rio Earth Summit 1992—Sustainable Development
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Forest Principles-- The world’s first agreement on forests
– Agenda for the 21st Century (Agenda 21)
– Convention on Biological Diversity
– Global Climate Change Treaty
• Second Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests
in Europe
– Public announcement of the goal of SFM by the year 2000
• Growing world public interest, world wide, in SD/SFM
Presidential Decision Directive
/NSC 16--1993
• National goal of sustainability
• Equates sustainability issues with national
security
Helsinki
• Commitment to the goal of SFM by
2000
What is Sustainable Development?
• “Sustainable development is not a fixed state of
harmony, but rather a process of change in which
the management of resources, direction of
investment, technological development and
institutional change are consistent with future as
well as present needs.” Prime Minister of Norway Gro
Brundtland in Our Common Future.
The Montreal Process
• 12 temperate and boreal forest countries
characterize and agreed on how to measure
national progress in SFM
• The resulting agreement to implement called the
Santiago Declaration (1995)
The Montreal Process -continued
• Over 20 stakeholder organizations participated in
preparing the US for the negotiations
• Stakeholders served as US delegates
– AF&PA, NASF
– Environmental organizations attended independently
• First Approximation Report assessed our national
capability to report on the C&I
National Association of State
Foresters--Letter to the Chief, 1997
• Federal government cannot do it all
• Roundtable on Sustainable Forests
So what is really driving us to
implement C&I?
• Stakeholder criticism?
• Framework for common data structure,
dialogue, focus scarce resources
• Ability to response to sustainable
development goals
• Data for 2003 Report
Not really
Self interest
• National interest
– Brazil looses 40% of it’s European market because of this issue
– Canada and others worried
– Basis for US international policy
• State interest
– Another way to leverage influence FS to improve better forest
inventory
– World is being globalized, keeping up
• Industry
– Protect interests
– Protect market share, National C&I and certification
• Environmental Groups
– Better data to make their point of view
What is the end point of this
program?
• This is not a program! There is no end.
• It is changing with way we do business
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Framework for understanding
Inventory
Assessment
Planning
Reporting
Policy making
The SRR notes reveal
skepticism
• Many things determine decisions rather than facts
• Disconnect between policy and field reality
• Can indicators be developed independent of land
use?
• What are indicators supposed to do?
• Some people think this will go nowhere?
Is there another precedent for
what we are doing?--yes
• The national economic accounts
Is there another precedent for
what we are doing--continued
• Presidents Hoover and then Roosevelt struggled to combat
the Great Depression of the 1930's
• Acceptance of John Maynard Keynes's The General
Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, stimulates
interest economic indicators.
• Need for comprehensive and integrated analyses of the
impact of alternative policy actions on the entire economy.
Is there another president for
what we are doing--continued
• Without measures of economic aggregates like GDP,
policymakers would be adrift in a sea of unorganized data.
• The GDP and related data are like beacons that help
policymakers steer the economy toward the key economic
objectives.
• The greatest advance in governance of the 20th century.
• I do not recall a single instance when the integrity of the
estimates was called into question by informed
observers—Greenspan.
Forest and Range Management, is
there a parallel? Of course there is!
• So, how much old growth is there?
• Are western salmon streams in bad shape?
• Birds are not as plentiful due to the decline of trees in the
wooded draws.
• BLM rangelands remain in only fair or poor condition.
• Is it true Golden eagle numbers have fallen due to the
deterioration of sage-bunchgrass habitats.
• Rriparian areas are in their worst condition ever.
• Rural parts of the Plains faced with depopulation.
Taken from High Country News
How will it all work?
• Public interest drives the use of indicators.
• Labor unions drive consideration for
unemployment.
• Business drives consideration for interest
rates.
• Government is interested in “stability”.
What should the future be?
• USA Today uses the indictors generated by the
range management community of interests.
• The source and accuracy of data for such
indicators is unquestioned.
• The range indicators generate a productive public
dialogue regarding the success of western
management strategies or what to do about
observed problems.