Forests opt for talks over lawsuits

The vocabulary of war is often used to describe relations between the U.S. Forest Service and environmental groups that skirmish with the agency in court.

But both sides have been waving white flags in recent months.

In Western Montana, the Forest Service has created a new position to bridge the chasm with environmental groups. In Washington’s Colville National Forest, lawsuits and appeals over forest management have largely ended thanks to the work of an unlikely coalition of loggers, environmentalists and business owners.

Formal peace talks even took place Tuesday at one of the fiercest battlegrounds, the Idaho Panhandle National Forests, when Mike Petersen, the leader of a prominent Spokane environmental group had a lengthy meeting with the forest supervisor.

“I’m actually hoping there’s some good intentions here,” said Petersen, executive director of the Lands Council, which played a major role in convincing federal judges in August to halt much of the Forest Service’s large projects in North Idaho. “I’m hopeful we could try to start doing things in a more collaborative way.”

Also at Tuesday’s meeting was Rick Brazell, supervisor of the Colville National Forest, which has experienced a marked warming in its relationship with environmentalists. Brazell credits the change to the Colville Community Forestry Coalition, a group that began meeting about four years ago to find common ground on forest issues. The coalition includes sawmill owners, environmentalists and even the owner of a local ski area. The Forest Service is prohibited by law from joining the coalition, but agency representatives attend the group’s public meetings and have worked closely with coalition members to address forest management concerns early in the planning process.

The coalition does not discuss old-growth or other contentious issues. Most of its efforts are focused on reducing the fire risk near communities.

“We’ve got to learn to crawl before we learn to run,” Brazell said, adding that the process isn’t always easy. “It’s sometimes very painful, but we keep coming back to the table. We’re dedicated to keep coming back to the table.”

Avoiding courtroom fights is even more critical in this era of steadily declining budgets, Brazell said. “We need the money we’ve got to manage the land.”

The Colville National Forest has not been sued or had projects appealed since Brazell took over the forest supervisor’s job in 2003. “You don’t have to worry about the torpedoes anymore,” he said, referring to the once-frequent legal challenges.

That contrasts with the Idaho Panhandle National Forests, which at times has faced Alamolike barrages of litigation, including four separate lawsuits at the same time last year. Bringing the two sides together might not be easy. Panhandle Forests spokesman Dave O’Brien said the agency has trouble seeing past the Lands Council’s stated objections to commercial timber harvest on federal lands.

“We’re open to trying to find agreement, but we have some pretty strong disagreements right now on some very fundamental things,” O’Brien said. “We’re willing to take baby steps. We’re not willing to take the huge step and say certainly no timber harvest. … That hurdle looks very, very large to us.”

Similar doubts were expressed by Barry Rosenberg, leader of the Coeur d’Alene-based Kootenai Environmental Alliance and a longtime critic of the agency’s practices in North Idaho. “I would love to sit down with the Forest Service, but they’d have to get a new paradigm,” he said.

One of the biggest fights has been over a Forest Service proposal to restore a watershed about 20 miles northeast of Coeur d’Alene. The agency planned to pay for the restoration work through a 1,400-acre timber sale. The Lands Council, Kootenai Environmental Alliance and two other groups sued to stop the so-called Iron Honey project. A federal appeals court found the Forest Service had insufficiently analyzed how the logging would impact the land.

O’Brien, with the Forest Service, said the environmental groups fail to realize that their lawsuits are slowing efforts to restore forest health. “The focus used to be on timber. The focus on this forest exclusively now is how can we leave the ground better than we entered it. We’ve changed dramatically. If Barry (Rosenberg) can’t give us a little credit for that, it’s hard to talk about some of these issues.”

Rosenberg threw his hands in the air when he learned the Forest Service was considering revisiting the Iron Honey project. “There is a fundamental blindness that exists in the agency,” he said, before going on to compare the Forest Service with “a doctor who’s killed most of (his) patients.”

It might be some time before the lawsuits are silenced in North Idaho, but signs of a truce are appearing in western Montana’s Lolo National Forest, which has been the focus of many earlier legal battles. In November, the Forest Service created a new half-time position focused on building dialogue with environmental groups. Leaders of the Lolo Forest have also been meeting regularly to discuss projects with environmentalists. Some of the district rangers drive two hours one-way to attend the monthly gatherings.

“The dialogue’s important,” said Jeff Juel, of the Missoula-based Ecology Center. “Folks are better able to understand what other peoples’ interests and philosophies are.”

The Lolo National Forest even reconsidered a proposed timber sale along the boundary of a wilderness area after concerns were expressed at the meetings.

The environmental groups are beginning to shed some of their deep-seated distrust of the agency and have even offered physical help, funding and technical assistance on a proposed fuels reduction project, said Matthew Koehler, with the Native Forest Network. Now, their animosity has shifted toward lawmakers whom they claim underfund the Forest Service while insisting that more timber be cut in the name of protecting communities from fire.

“What we’re finding, without a doubt, the biggest obstacle is funding and Congress,” Koehler said.