Abrams Jesse, Greiner Michelle, Schultz Courtney, Evans Alexander, Huber-Stearns Heidi
Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources / Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, University of Georgia, 180 E. Green St., Athens, GA, 30602-2152, USA.
Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship, Colorado State University, 1401 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO, 80523-1401, USA.
Environ Manage. 2021 Apr;67(4):574-588. doi: 10.1007/s00267-021-01451-4. Epub 2021 Mar 1.
The United States Forest Service, a federal agency entrusted with managing 78 M hectares of national forestlands under a broad multiple-use mandate, has seen recent shifts in policy direction emphasizing ecological restoration, consideration of climate change impacts, and a focus on managing for resilient landscapes. The process of revising the comprehensive plans guiding national forest management presents opportunities to reorient objectives, activities, and commitments toward these goals. Here we analyze case studies of three national forests that have completed the forest plan revision process since 2014: the Francis Marion National Forest in coastal South Carolina, the Kaibab National Forest in northern Arizona, and the Rio Grande National Forest in southern Colorado. We analyze plan revision participants' perspectives on the opportunities and barriers to reorienting national forest management toward resilient landscapes and the broader political, social, and institutional factors that influence these dynamics. Key opportunities included better promoting resilient landscape objectives by revising fire management guidelines, incorporating scientific data and modeling from multiple agency and non-agency partners, and building opportunities for adaptive management via long-term trust networks. Major barriers included inconsistent higher-level support for resilience objectives, an emphasis on meeting narrow quantitative performance targets, and under-investments in monitoring.
美国林业局是一个联邦机构，负责在广泛的多用途授权下管理7800万公顷的国家森林土地。最近，其政策方向发生了转变，强调生态恢复、考虑气候变化影响以及注重管理具有复原力的景观。修订指导国家森林管理的综合计划的过程为重新调整目标、活动和承诺以实现这些目标提供了机会。在此，我们分析了自2014年以来完成森林计划修订过程的三个国家森林的案例研究：南卡罗来纳州沿海的弗朗西斯·马里恩国家森林、亚利桑那州北部的凯巴布国家森林以及科罗拉多州南部的里奥格兰德国家森林。我们分析了计划修订参与者对于将国家森林管理重新定位为具有复原力的景观所面临的机遇和障碍，以及影响这些动态的更广泛的政治、社会和制度因素。关键机遇包括通过修订火灾管理指南更好地促进具有复原力的景观目标，纳入来自多个机构和非机构合作伙伴的科学数据和模型，以及通过长期信任网络建立适应性管理的机会。主要障碍包括对复原力目标缺乏一致的高层支持、强调实现狭隘的量化绩效目标以及监测方面的投资不足。
