Wild Science: The recent role of political ecology in shaping federal forest management in the Pacific Northwest

Background/Question/Methods
Much science is devoted to improving the implementation of existing methods, practices, and policies—something that might be called “domesticated science.”   Some scientific effort, though, is focused on probing and challenging the basic assumptions underlying management and policy—“wild science.”  Further, some scientists devote themselves to this latter endeavor, to the discomfort of policy makers and managers, but the benefit of society.  The recent and chaotic history of federal forests is replete with such challenges, and work of Jerry Franklin and his colleagues have helped to create a political ecology that now provides the foundation of federal forest management in the Pacific Northwest.   Traditionally management rested on belief in a coming timber famine, the need for conversion of old growth forests to fast-growing young forests, and the assumption that adherence to long-term sustained yield of timber would sustain forests. As is now well known, scientific findings on the ecological value of old growth forests and trees, snags, and down wood upended this traditional management foundation. Combined with federal environmental laws, these scientific findings led to the integration of ecological principles into forest policy.  Jerry Franklin helped midwife this fundamental change, culminating in the Northwest Forest Plan.

Results/Conclusions
Over the last decade, federal forests of the Northwest have increasingly been managed with the maintenance and restoration of old growth forests and associated spotted owl habitat as their overriding goal, reflecting both the political ecology underlying their management and the litigious atmosphere in which they sit.  Jerry Franklin is again challenging management assumptions, arguing that such a strategy will result in the loss of important ecological elements of these forests.  Specifically, he argues that these forests increasingly lack diverse early seral ecosystems and that the surest way to create them is through variable retention harvest combined with new approaches to conserving the variety of plants that come in after harvest.  He is now demonstrating these ideas in projects across the Moist Forests of Oregon. This work will undoubtedly upset conventional management, lead to new polices, and change, once again, the political ecology underlying management of our federal lands here.