[WEC-All] Fwd: Collaborating Environmentalists out on a limb, as they're logging your national forests, LAT, 20080124

[Mark Robinowitz]

"stakeholder" is a term from casinos, not democratic decision making  
processes.

"Stakeholder" refers to the person who holds the "stakes" of gamblers.

Citizens who participate in these sorts of semi-secretive gatherings  
are gambling that their views will be taken seriously with the respect  
that they deserve.

It would be interesting to know which public relations firm perverted  
the word "stakeholder" to mean "citizen."



Begin forwarded message:

From: zerocut1 <zerocut1 at forestcouncil.org>
Date: January 24, 2008 6:32 AM : Jan 24
To: Stumps at forestcouncil.org
Subject: [Stumps] Collaborating Environmentalists out on a limb, as  
they're logging your national forests, LAT, 20080124

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-rosenberg24jan24,1,1457111.story
 From the Los Angeles Times
Environmentalists out on a limb

For a seat at the negotiating table, they are jeopardizing their true  
role.
By Erica Rosenberg

January 24, 2008

There's nothing wrong with a group of people historically at odds  
sitting down to find common ground. Or is there?

For decades, our public lands have been a battleground: Timber,  
wildlife, recreation, wilderness -- which interests and uses should  
dominate? But now, "collaboration" is all the rage. In collaboration,  
diverse stakeholders (as they invariably tag themselves) --  
environmentalists, developers, off-roaders, timber companies, county  
officials -- hash out an agreement on how to manage their local public  
lands and then submit it to Congress for approval.

A few deals already have been enacted, and another half a dozen are in  
the works across the U.S. Collaboration has been touted as the  
solution to "gridlock" on our national forests. Timber companies and  
their allies gripe that the normal process -- extensive analysis,  
citizen involvement and the right to challenge agency decisions -- has  
ground all "management activity" (read: logging) to a halt. Western  
counties surrounded by public land argue that they need room to  
expand. Others believe lands worthy of protection are still  
threatened. The new paradigm means everyone sits down with their  
adversaries.

But these collaborations are troublesome, particularly for  
environmentalists, who risk undermining their mission as well as the  
very laws that are the basis of their power, effectiveness and  
legitimacy.

For example, a bill poised for introduction in Congress would turn  
into law an agreement reached by one collaborative group on how to  
manage Montana's 3.3-million-acre Beaverhead-Deerlodge National  
Forest. The stakeholders -- Montana Wilderness Assn., National  
Wildlife Federation, Trout Unlimited and timber companies -- had one  
thing in common: They hated the management plan proposed by the Forest  
Service. So they came up with their own plan specifying which areas  
can be logged, which can be opened up to off-roaders and which should  
be recommended to Congress for wilderness designation.

Sounds reasonable enough. So what's wrong? To start, as owners of the  
public lands, all Americans have a stake in their management, and they  
have not designated these representatives. Even the most inclusive  
collaboration can go bad: Outliers who pose a threat to consensus are  
either not invited or made to feel unwelcome. And ultimately,  
decisions are being made behind closed doors. But Congress loves a  
done deal. With a local sponsor, Congress is inclined to rubber-stamp  
these initiatives, overlooking the fact that they are an end-run  
around the suite of laws that safeguard public lands and keep land- 
management decisions an open process.

The Beaverhead bill, for example, triples the acreage where logging  
can take place from what was in the Forest Service's plan. It requires  
an environmental analysis only for individual logging projects rather  
than the plan as a whole, thereby waiving the bedrock U.S.  
environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act. It also  
allows logging in roadless areas -- a radical departure from the  
Roadless Area Conservation Rule that environmentalists championed  
during the Clinton era. Other deals have sold off vast acreage of  
public lands in exchange for wilderness designations.

The collaboration prototype -- the 1998 Quincy Library Group  
legislation -- illustrates the problem. That group, named for the  
California town library where it met, came up with a plan for three  
national forests in the Sierra affected by endangered-species  
listings. The proposal increased logging while protecting pristine  
areas. When it landed in Congress, California Rep. George Miller  
insisted on adding one provision: All environmental laws would apply.  
That meant the Quincy Library logging plan had to go through the same  
environmental analysis a Forest Service plan would.

The Quincy Library proposal, held up at the time as a model of local,  
consensus-based decision-making, has never been fully implemented.  
Why? Primarily because it didn't jibe with Endangered Species Act  
guidelines protecting the California spotted owl. In other words, it  
did not pass scientific or legal muster.

That environmentalist "stakeholders" signed on to the Quincy Library  
agreement in the first place highlights the danger of the  
collaboration fad. After years of being tarred as obstructionist  
ideologues, some environmental groups now have a seat at the  
negotiating table -- indeed, are seen as crucial to legitimizing any  
deal. Enjoying their newfound popularity, these self-appointed  
decision-makers become heavily invested in reaching an accord,  
regardless of the science, the law or the long-term effect on the land.

For decades, environmentalists fought to get a more level playing  
field and establish transparency and accountability in public-lands  
policy; they continue to fight the Bush administration's relentless  
efforts to dismantle these policies. How ironic it would be, then, if  
in their eagerness to embrace the new paradigm, they craft and push  
through Congress deals that undercut the very laws that got them to  
the table in the first place.

Erica Rosenberg directs the program on public policy at Arizona State  
University's law school and served as counsel to the House Resources  
Committee from 1999-2004.



Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times  
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