A Brief History of Management Viewpoints

Forest management in the United States has followed several different models over the past century. From the earlier periods of exploitation, concepts of sustained yield, multiple-use management, and ecosystem management have evolved.

Sustained Yield

"The beginning of the 20th century brought a marked change in American values and approaches to management of the nations renewable natural resources: unbridled exploitation of resources was giving way to the notion of conserving resources for future generations" (Cortner et al. 1999). It took some time, but this change in natural resource management philosophy was eventually called conservation and the accompanying management paradigm was called sustained yield. The emphasis was not on timber production for economic development, but sustainable timber production. The major elements characterizing sustained yield viewpoint are (Davis et al 2001):

• based on Organic Act establishing the US Forest Service as interpreted by Gifford Pinchot
• human-nature relationship: humans dominate nature
• resources/conditions of primary interest: commercial timber and watershed protection
• conservation: wise use of resources but in sustainable ways
• forests were meant to contribute wood, water, and forage to nations economic welfare
• stability in forest products made available
• forest management viewed as a business
• local issues decided at the local level within the boundaries set by sustainability

Multiple Use-Sustained Yield

Sustained yield was the dominant forest management paradigm in the United States until the Multiple-Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960 and the National Forest Management Act of 1976 added additional outputs to be managed sustainably: recreation, visual quality, recreational fish and game, and water quality. "The days have ended when the forest may be viewed as trees and trees viewed only as timber. Soil and water, grasses and shrubs, fish and wildlife, and the beauty that is the forest must become integral parts of resource managers thinking and actions" (Hubert Humphrey as quoted by Davis et al., 2001). This new forest management paradigm signaled the increasing political and social influence of the preservation movement with their philosophical belief that whatever nature does is better than what humans can do. Intrinsic forest ecosystem values, such as old growth conditions, preference for native species, biodiversity, and a preference for the dominance of natural processes over human intervention characterizes the preservationists philosophy (Davis et al., 2001).

• based on Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act of 1960 and National Forest Management Act of 1976
• human-nature relationship: humans dominate nature
• resources/conditions of primary interest: timber, forage, recreation, water, wildlife, visual quality
• forest management viewed as a business
• increasing environmentalist objections to forest management practices
• local issues increasingly decided at the national level
• econometric, optimization planning tools increasingly applied to develop management plan in an attempt to actually figure out "how to" do multiple-use management

Naturally Functioning Forest Ecosystems

The preservation movement, championed early in the 20th century by John Muir, led initially to the establishment of the National Park System as a separate administrative entity. National Parks were designated federal lands where forests were allowed to develop without significant human intervention. "A strong adoption of the naturalistic value system that whatever nature does is better than what humans do" is the dominant ideological viewpoint (Davis et al. 2001). In the 1950s and 1960s, the preservation movement began to concentrate on creating "wilderness areas" within National Forest boundaries. These wilderness areas are essentially parks within managed forests. In the 1970s, the environmental movement championed an impressive series of new laws designed to reverse the nations focus on using natural resources to support economic development (Davis et al. 2001). These new laws changed the National Forest Management and Planning process most significantly by opening up the decision process and mandating significant public participation (Davis et al. 2001)

• based on the National Environmental Protection Act (1969), the Endangered Species Act (1973), the Clean Air Act (1972), the Clean Water Act (1972), the Resources Planning Act (1974), the National Forest Management Act (1976)
• human-nature relationship: nature dominates, humans largely ignored
• parks, natural areas, and wilderness area creation
• nonintervention in insect, disease, and fire processes
• minimization of human activities
• intense public policy battles to curtail commodity production on National Forests
• national viewpoints dominate local beliefs and values

Ecosystem Management

The adoption by the Forest Service of another forest management viewpoint, called ecosystem management in 1992, signaled an attempt to create a philosophy where humans and nature coexist, where human goals are obtained within a framework of a baseline level of ecosystem protection. In some ways, ecosystem management can be viewed as an attempted compromise between the multiple use-sustained yield viewpoint and the naturally functioning forest ecosystems viewpoint. While not always at odds, multiple-use sustained yield and ecosystem management approaches differ in important ways. The most important among these is how ecosystem management is implemented. Despite much political, ecological, conservation, and public support for this new management paradigm, it suffers from a number of problems that make its adoption by managers difficult.