Changes in Relationships between the USDA Forest Service and Small, Forest-Based Communities in the Northwest Forest Plan Area amid Declines in Agency Staffing

This article explores the changing relationships between the USDA Forest Service and 10 small, forest-based communities in the Northwest Forest Plan area in Washington, Oregon, and California. Interviews with 158 community members and agency personnel indicated that community member interviewees were largely dissatisfied with the agency’s current level of community engagement. Interviewees believed that loss of staff was the primary factor contributing to declining engagement, along with increasing turnover and long-distance commuting. Interviewees offered explanations for increasing employee turnover and commuting, including lack of housing, lack of employment for spouses, lack of services for children, social isolation, improving road conditions making long-distance commuting easier, agency incentives and culture, decreasing social cohesion among agency staff, unpaid overtime responsibilities, and agency hiring practices. Community member perceptions regarding long-term changes in community well-being and agency-community relationships were more negative than agency staff’s perceptions. Study Implications: We found evidence that staffing declines, turnover, and long-distance commuting may contribute to decreasing agency engagement in some communities, and that diminished engagement by federal forest management agency employees may contribute to negative attitudes toward the agency. Agency employee interviewees suggested that incentives (i.e., promotions, opportunities to live elsewhere), internal conflicts, and a lack of opportunities and services for their families are reasons that staff commute from neighboring communities or leave their jobs. Our findings suggest that the USDA Forest Service may improve agency-community relationships by supporting its staff in ways that reduce turnover and long-distance commuting and incentivize community engagement.

Impacts of the Northwest Forest Plan on forest composition and bird populations

The Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) initiated one of the most sweeping changes to forest management in the world, affecting 10 million hectares of federal land. The NWFP is a science-based plan incorporating monitoring and adaptive management and provides a unique opportunity to evaluate the influence of policy. We used >25 years of region-wide bird surveys, forest data, and land-ownership maps to test this policy’s effect on biodiversity. Clearcutting decreased rapidly, and we expected populations of older-forest–associated birds to stabilize on federal land, but to continue declining on private industrial lands where clearcutting continued. In contrast, we expected declines in early-seral–associated species on federal land because of reduced anthropogenic disturbance since the NWFP. Bayesian hierarchical models revealed that bird species’ population trends tracked changes in forest composition. However, against our expectations, declines of birds associated with older forests accelerated. These declines are partly explained by losses of older forests due to fire on federal land and continued clearcutting elsewhere. Indeed, the NWFP anticipated that reversing declines of older forests would take time. Overall, the early-seral ecosystem area was stable, but declined in two ecoregions—the Coast Range and Cascades—along with early-seral bird populations. Although the NWFP halted clearcutting on federal land, this has so far been insufficient to reverse declines in older-forest–associated bird populations. These findings underscore the importance of continuing to prioritize older forests under the NWFP and ensuring that the recently proposed creation of early-seral ecosystems does not impede the conservation and development of older-forest structure.