December 19, 2011
Even for a body famous for doing the wrong thing, the Board of Forestry sank to new lows in its treatment of the unanimous consensus recommendations of the Jackson Forest Advisory Group.
The 12-member Advisory Group had representation from every interest group affected by the management of Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF), a 50,000 acre redwood forest in Mendocino County. The Advisory Group, of which I was a member, was formed in 2008 in response to over 10 years of acrimonious conflict over the forest's management, including legal actions that shut down all operations of the forest for eight years. The Advisory Group's goal was to develop consensus recommendations for long-term management of the forest.
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The recommendations were forward-looking: allowing portions of the forest to move back toward the conditions of old-growth forests; harvesting timber in ways that would allow development of older, larger trees, keeping open the possibility for future generations to shift more of the forest toward old-growth conditions; raising the importance of recreation and aesthetic values; and creating a world-class forest research program.
On July 13, 2011, the Board of Forestry acted on the Advisory Group recommendations. By selectively choosing from the Advisory Group's recommendations, the Board unraveled the unanimously supported consensus that the Group worked arduously for 2 1/2 years to achieve.
The board eliminated the key protections that would have ensured that the forest was placed on a path toward restoration of older forest characteristics across the forest landscape. It contemptuously dismissed the Group's recommendations designed to enhance recreation experiences and to move toward elimination of herbicides.
All of the changes made by the Board were to move forest management of JDSF back toward "business as usual," away from the balanced vision put forth by the Jackson Advisory Group. In so doing, they threw away the golden opportunity to end the conflict, legal challenges, and acrimony that have surrounded JDSF for fifteen years.
After giving the matter lengthy consideration, I resigned from the Advisory Group on September 6, 2011. I said to the Board of Forestry in a letter that detailed its failure to act in a responsible, respectful manner, "If I were to remain a member of the Advisory Group, I would be tacitly accepting the actions of the Board. To do so would betray the thousands of people who have relied on me to represent their desire for meaningful reform of JDSF management."
The following is excerpted from my letter to the Board of Forestry: 1
"Given the language of the charter ..., the wisdom of eliminating conflict and future legal challenges to JDSF management, and the remarkable achievement of the Advisory Group in coming to unanimous consensus, I and others had every reason to expect that the Board would accept the recommendations of the Advisory Group without significant changes.
Instead, you rejected central elements of the recommendations that were of crucial importance to the conservation, recreation, and general public members of the group, and did so in way that was extremely disrespectful of the Advisory Group.
The actions of the Board were, and I use the word advisedly, deplorable:
* In rejecting central elements of the consensus recommendations, the Board unraveled the hard-won consensus. In so doing, it threw away the golden opportunity for a future for JDSF free from conflict and discord.
* The entire process of the Jackson Advisory Group (JAG), prior to the Board review, was collegial and inclusive, with the goal of ensuring that all parties felt heard and their concerns honored.
* The Board, in contrast, acted in isolation and shut out the Advisory Group from process. When months of Board review passed without requests for input or participation by the Advisory Group, the Group's Chair wrote on May 9, 2011, via email, to the Board of Forestry and Cal Fire:
On behalf of the JAG I request that opportunities be provided for the JAG to formally contribute to on-going discussion by the Board and its Committees as these bodies review the JAG Report...
Continued involvement of, and dialogue with, the broadly-representative JAG would, I believe, benefit the Board and its Committees as they consider the JAG's consensus-developed recommendations.
No response was made to the letter, and the request was ignored.
* The Board never gave the Advisory Group any opportunity to respond to concerns or to comment on proposed Board changes to its recommendations.
* The Board allowed staff and a few Board members working for tens of hours to discard central agreements that took Advisory Group thousands of hours to develop, review, and revise until agreement could be reached.
Different members of the Advisory Group have expressed to me that "The Board's actions were a slap in the face," and "The Board threw us under the bus." However expressed, there is no question that the Board showed no respect for the members of the Jackson Advisory Group or their accomplishments."
This is a sad note on which to end the ten years of effort I devoted to making management of Jackson Forest appropriate for a publicly owned forest. If you feel as I do that the actions of the Board of Forestry were ill founded and unacceptable, please join me in asking the Board to reconsider its actions on the recommendations of the Jackson Advisory Group. You can do this by following the appropriate link at www.jacksonforest.org.
Vince Taylor is a former member of the Jackson Advisory Group. The views expressed herein are solely his own.
1 Letter from Vince Taylor to Board of Forestry, September 6, 2011. Text of the letter is available at www.jacksonforest.org.
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