Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition & USDA Forest Service Ecosystem Services Discussion

Transcription

1 Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition & USDA Forest Service Ecosystem Services Discussion Final Agenda as of November 12, 2013 Call date: Wednesday, November 20th at 10am (pacific), please reserve 1.5 hours for the call Call-in Information: , pass code 2216 Documents to review prior to the call: NESST charter and mission statement Background: The Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition (RVCC) is comprised of local, regional, and national organizations that have joined together to promote balanced conservation-based approaches to the ecological and economic problems facing the West. Since 2001, RVCC participants have worked together to develop and promote policy solutions based on collaborative, place-based work that recognizes the inextricable link between the long-term health of the land and the well-being of rural communities. We come from Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington. Participants in the RVCC Public Lands and Economic Development and Working Lands working groups have been very interested in ecosystem services and how the federal agency staff and particularly the Forest Service are working to incorporate ecosystem services concepts and frameworks into national forest system (and all lands) management and policy at multiple scales. Discussion goals: Create a venue for RVCC participants to learn about Forest Service efforts to apply ecosystem services concepts to public lands management. What are the stumbling blocks? What is confusing? What s exciting? Allow Forest Service staff at the local, regional and national levels, and RVCC participants (community-based organizations and rural leaders) to discuss these applications and speak candidly about the opportunities and challenges they pose for restoration and management, as well as social and economic impacts to rural communities in the West. Brainstorm ways for RVCC participants to stay engaged and partner with the agency to advance ecosystem services work at the local, regional or national levels. How can RVCC participants help the Forest Service get some of these pilots, frameworks, etc. off the ground? Discussion agenda: 10:00 am Quick introduction of call topic and review of the agenda and speakers Alaina Pomeroy, Program Manager, Sustainable Northwest 10:05 am Lightning round of introductions (5 min) Each person provides their name and affiliation. 10:10 am Forest Service update on the National Ecosystem Services Strategy Team (NESST) (5 min) Bob Deal, Research Forester and Ecosystem Services Team Leader, Forest Service Provide background information and lay out the goals of NESST. Discuss current 1

2 accomplishments and plans moving forward to institutionalize ecosystem services concepts, as well as the challenges and opportunities in developing an overarching USFS strategy for ecosystem services. 10:15 am Q&A with Bob Deal and group discussion (20 min) Questions to seed discussion: - As the FS considers incorporation of ecosystem services in the FS Handbook, how can they strike a balance between specificity and flexibility, to provide clarity and direction without being overly prescriptive? - How can the USFS increase collaboration across deputy areas (National Forest System, Research and Development, and State and Private Forestry?) - Can the ecosystem services lens help to re-frame public land management performance targets and outcomes to achieve multiple, integrated objectives? 10:35 am Update on the Ecosystem Services Evaluation Framework Team (ESEFT) and ecosystem services in the new Planning Rule (5 min) Chris Miller, Economist, WO Planning Staff Provide background information, goals and status of the ESEFT methodology. Example of how one early adopter forest is thinking about addressing ecosystem services under the new Forest Plan (5 min) Krista Gebert, Regional Economist, Northern Region Provide overview of what this looks like hitting the ground as well as challenges and opportunities for the Forest Service and local partners. 10:45 am Q&A with Chris, Kawa, Krista and Nikola and group discussion (20 min) Questions to seed discussion: - How is the ecosystem services element of the Planning Rule different than multiple-use provisions? - What is the greatest value-add of including ES concepts in the 2012 Planning Rule? The greatest challenges? - How could ecosystem services help staff better assess management tradeoffs? - How is the all lands concept being applied in forest planning? 11:05 am Group discussion, wrap-up and next steps (25 min) Questions to seed discussion: - How can the RVCC be engaged as these efforts move forward? - How can the RVCC help the FS get some of these things off the ground? - How can the FS support local efforts to start an ES project outside of the forest planning context? Topics we can touch on during the call, but probably warrant future discussion: - Is there potential to use ecosystem services concepts to change agency performance measures? - Does ecosystem services measurement and valuation provide an opportunity to reform the county payments system? I.e. Payments to counties for maintenance and restoration of ecosystem services. - Are there new emerging markets or sources of demand for restoration work that will apply to federal lands? 2

3 US Forest Service and Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition Discussion on Ecosystem Services Call Notes November 20th, 2013 Forest Service update on the National Ecosystem Services Strategy Team (NESST) Bob Deal (Research Forester and Ecosystem Services Team Leader, US Forest Service) and Nikola Smith (USFS Pacific NW Regional Office, Regional Forest System and State and Private Lands) NESST emerged from a 2012 Ecosystem Services Champions Forum in Portland during which roughly 30 people from the USFS came together to try and understand the different ways the USFS was approaching the ecosystem services concept. There was recognition at the time that there were lots of activities in the agency, but they were not well-described or integrated across the agency. The group provided recommendations for the USFS, which included: developing a common language in the agency to talk about ecosystem services, creating a framework for the agency to incorporate ecosystem services, integrating ecosystem services approaches across the agency, and identifying potential partners. This was largely a grassroots effort but needed leadership. After the forum, six deputy chiefs liked what the group did and their recommendations. They did not, however, want them to develop a framework and instead wanted them to develop a policy and strategy for the agency, including a powerful charter or strong mandate for bringing ecosystem services into the agency. NESST is now working to revise the agency handbook to include ecosystem services policy and has been working on developing a charter for about a year. Another goal of NESST is in trying to be clear about what we mean when we say ecosystem services and articulating this work more coherently. The concept of ecosystem services means different things to different people. In regards to the USFS system, what many people, especially in the agency, think about when thinking ecosystem services from forests are timber, recreation, clean water, etc. But other people think about cultural values, health benefits from being in the forest, and spiritual values. These services are typically undervalued and underappreciated by the agency. There is recognition within NESST that different people in the USFS are thinking about this concept in different ways and having a unified concept would be helpful so that is also one of the main goals of NESST. Questions: How often does NESST meet? There are weekly sub-team meetings and the whole team meets once per month. It seems like there are a lot of people working on different things and maybe there are some communication gaps. Is NESST a group RVCC could participate with in the future to help develop better communication lines, etc.? It could be. NESST started as a grassroots effort and then reached the national level on how it would be implemented. It is important to have examples of how it is being applied in projects on ground, at the regional level, etc. We need to make sure it s relevant to the agency in projects and that we re doing the right kind of things and that s something that RVCC could help with. Do you anticipate this will be incorporated into the NEPA planning process? How well are ecosystem services being integrated into the everyday process? 1

4 There will be things like formally revising the handbook, but it probably won t go as far as changing NEPA and how NEPA is done. It is being adopted in the planning rule, so ecosystem services will need to be considered in planning. Have you thought about how working conditions fit in with the new focus on ecosystem services? There is a lot of noncompliance with labor laws on public lands and this seems like a great opportunity to include working conditions, which is a major underpinning of social sustainability. Ecosystem services is different than ecosystem management in that it is a way of thinking about how people benefit from nature. Ecosystem management is more about taking specific management actions and how that management occurs, which it sounds like you re asking about so they re slightly different concepts. One way to think about this is the connection between communities and the land. For instance, on the Willamette National Forest, the USFS is working with stakeholders in Sweet Home to coordinate restoration on both private and public lands to help sustain local employment. So this is present in conversations, but less so about labor issues. I d be happy to connect with people in the regional office on labor issues. Update on the Ecosystem Services Evaluation Framework Team and ecosystem services in the new Planning Rule. Chris Miller (USFS Economist, WO Planning Staff) Bob talked about agency level and the planning rule applies to strategic planning at forest level. The USFS land management planning rule requires each national forest to go through a planning process. This planning process considers lots of things and ecosystem services are just one component. The new planning rule defines ecosystem services as the benefits people receive from ecosystems and categorizes the types of ecosystem services very similar to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. There are four broad categories: provisioning services (e.g., timber, fiber, food), regulating services (e.g., carbon sequestration, purification of air and water), supporting services (e.g., nutrient cycling, seed dispersal), and cultural services (e.g., recreation, spiritual values). These different services are now being considered in the planning process. In general, the planning process is loosely based around 3 steps: assess what might need to change in the forest; propose alternatives to make the necessary changes; and, evaluate alternatives. The new rule states that each plan should guide management to provide for ecosystem services. The rule is silent, however, in terms of how ecosystem services should be considered and evaluated. This offers a great deal of flexibility. There is some guidance in the handbook on identifying key ecosystem services to evaluate because we can t look at each ecosystem service separately. So we need to identify key ecosystem services that are important to people in the broader landscape and those services that are impacted by the plan. Subsections that should be included in the assessment include assessing how USFS currently provides ecosystem services and the scale at which ecosystem services are provided. There is a draft advice document that provides some guidance and steps for assessing ecosystem services. For example, it lists some baseline information necessary for evaluating ecosystem services and differentiates between benefits and supply of ecosystem services, which are two different dimensions. It also differentiates between intermediate and final services (i.e., those that are consumed). There are several challenges that have emerged. Defining ecosystem services is sometimes difficult since there is often overlap among resources and services. There is also a challenge in distinguishing intermediate from final services. Additionally, people want the opportunity to 2

5 express their needs and concerns without pigeonholing their concerns into an ecosystem service. It is also difficult to define what ecosystem services are key and it gets complicated quickly. Finally, incorporating ecosystem service values and valuations is a challenge and off the shelf tools are not always adequate. There are data limitation in valuation of services. Questions: What is the difference between ecosystems services planning and NEPA? Is it that ecosystem services is more at the forest level and NEPA is at the more detailed project level? Not necessarily - ecosystem services planning is more of an approach or a process, something to address through planning. The planning process is broader and more extensive than NEPA. That is not to say that there are huge inconsistencies between planning and what you need to do to comply with NEPA If ecosystem services planning is new, what is it replacing? There is recognition of the fact that our understanding of how people benefit from forests is incomplete. We ve done a good job of assessing resources but that doesn t always translate into benefits or the broad spectrum of benefits. Ecosystem services planning is not comparable to NEPA. Ecosystem services is most comparable to Multiple use management but is different because it also considers undervalued parts that weren t thought about before when people focused more on commodities. Ecosystem services does more than that, it gives greater weight to non-monetized and cultural values. It allows you to think about these things more broadly than before. The concept of ecosystem services also supports collaborative planning processes. It behooves planners to engage regional partners/stakeholders early on to define management goals and make the process more transparent. Example of how one early adopter forest is thinking about addressing ecosystem services under the new Forest Plan. Krista Gebert (Regional Economist, Northern Region. Currently working with two collaborative planning teams on conservation planning in the Nez Perce-Clearwater and Lolo-Flathead-Helena forests). There have been many challenges. It has been hard to get people to wrap their heads around ecosystem services. People are used to multiple use and don t understand how it is the same and how it is different. For one, we are mandated by law to account for multiple uses in the planning rule, so it cannot be treated as a subset of ecosystem services. Also, planning teams are often used to doing things the way they have in past. A common mistake is conflating the benefits people get from nature with the benefits people get from management actions. This makes it difficult since some folks may want to bring management actions such as infrastructure like roads into the discussion. Also confusing is the difference between goods and services and benefits. Trying to use this concept in a strategic plan is very difficult because you cannot get into specifics. So it s tough trying to operationalize it. The Nez Perce-Clearwater interdisciplinary team drafted a list of ecosystem services and the public working group provided feedback regarding key ecosystem service values. They identified: clean water/air, wood / forage products, spiritual health, aesthetics, recreation, soil stability, landscape/system health, and flood control as key services for the forest. The goal is to eventually assess the degree to which plans address the ES identified. The next step is to evaluate indicators and operationalize them through the NEPA planning requirements. 3

6 The Flathead forest is undergoing a similar process. After crafting a list, the group took four field trips to visit sites and discuss management priorities for ecosystem services. A question that emerged was how to address a local resource or concern that is not present at larger scales. For example, in the Flathead, the harvesting of huckleberries was a really important cultural service in a specific area but not relevant in other places on the forest. The Forest Service doesn t have data on huckleberries and it doesn t track well in planning so it was difficult to know how to deal with the issue. Questions: You talked about different services, e.g., clean water, etc. Those are ecosystem services, but then you mention wood and forage products. I thought I understood, but I think of that as more management related. You re exactly right, those multiple use categories like timber, etc., all of those are still ecosystem services, but they just fall under provisioning services and the others under cultural services. We still need to account for them in the plan. Trees and wood products are still ecosystem services but are different than the ones we re trying to expand to include in planning. We can think of it as an umbrella that includes timber, water, and cultural services, though we need to use multiple use concepts because of the law, we should account for both in the plan. That s right, in the plan we re writing up multiple uses and ecosystem services in the same chapter. We talk about those ecosystem services covered by multiple use mandates and then move onto others. Timber is a good example. We talk about timber sales and people say that s a management action. When looking at that action, we might say that doesn t belong as an ecosystem service but it helps to raise discussion. Sounds like there have been a lot of challenges, what about what s been helpful or beneficial about using the ecosystem services concept? We held workshops and had people from the Washington office and researchers gave presentations. That helped. In the Flathead we put together a diagram that gave people a way to talk about what about the forest was important to them. Another value added is that the ecosystem services concept helps support integrated approaches to management. Instead of just timber objectives, we can talk about what is going on across the landscape and think about how that impacts different resource areas (e.g., wildlife, recreation, etc.). That helps us tell more sophisticated stories about how forest management benefits people and tax payers. It also helps the members of the ID team to get out of their silos and talk to eachother. How is NESST viewing integration of private and public lands in this process? Traditionally they ve been segmented into private and public. Markets are more applicable to private lands and the ecosystem services concept can be used to provide incentives for private forest management. However, there are models that could get around this. For example, there is often not enough money for replanting trees. National Forest Foundation could do the planting and get carbon credits from trees they planted. The Secretary of Agriculture wants to apply an all lands approach and we are thinking about management of lands across jurisdictions such as through watershed investment partnerships, collaborations with utilities, drinking water supplies, voluntary incentive programs, etc. This concept helps us forge and support partnerships with private lands approaches. 4

7 Johnny Sundstrom is part of Joint Forestry Team (JFT), and would like to have NESST member come and present. Emily Weidner is a source of information in Washington, D.C. I m confused about some of the language. Mitigation, payments for ecosystem services, etc. My question is, on a landscape scale, do you see ES playing a role with endangered species management across boundaries? Maybe. There are some conservation banking approaches, especially in California, that provide alternatives or mitigating effects for endangered species. Payments for ecosystem services can play a role in habitat protection for threatened and endangered species. There have been some examples that are mitigating impacts to threatened or endangered fish, such as temperature impacts from effluent. Medford is one example. What are some of the stumbling blocks in implementing the process? The budgetary structure is a big stumbling block. We get discrete budget silos and staff is expected to deliver specific targets for those budgets. This perpetuates siloed work. The budget environment doesn t facilitate integrated and innovative approaches. Figuring out the supply and demand for services. The USFS is asking how much of these services it does or should supply. Coming up with demand side is much more difficult to wrap your head around. We can talk about it qualitatively, but it is difficult to put a measurement on it. Is there more attention to including ecosystem services in different timber certification processes? I am hearing some ideas but this needs more attention. In thinking about the budget silos and silos for planning and ecosystem services, is the IRR budget pilot helping to break down silos or is institutional change not trickling from the budget pilot to other sectors? IRR has helped in some respects, but it hasn t stopped competition among different interests. They all want to take money and use it in their area. We haven t gotten there yet, but it s a good step. The budget issue is probably going to get gloomier. There is uncertainty in ecosystem services and it is a huge factor. In planning, we haven t gotten to how we document uncertainty of ecosystem services and how that informs the monitoring plan. The monitoring component is not something we ve explored yet. My advice is trying to get beyond intermediate and final services. Don t get too stressed about this. The EPA has developed an approach to deal with it but it became more confusing than it was before. Don t get stressed out about the final services you monitor, because it won t be clear at the end anyway. If you have a flow chart or diagram you could share, that would be really helpful. Possible Next Steps Tracking NESST efforts and early adopter forests to learn what adopting this looks like and glean lessons from early adopters. In the next PLWG and WLWG calls, it would be good to debrief this call and think more about next steps o Talk about how to break down silos and move this forward. 5