Ecosystem Planning

Inefficiency and waste at the Forest Service have already cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Moreover, the Forest Service has often failed to achieve its planned objectives. The Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and other federal land management agencies have developed plans to manage federal resources independently--focusing mainly on the resources within the administrative boundaries of individual national forests, parks, and other federal land management units. These efforts, however, often failed to adequately consider ecological issues that transcend administrative boundaries. This report discusses (1) the extent to which each effort has addressed long-standing planning deficiencies; (2) whether the agencies encountered the delays and significant costs that have been characteristic of previous planning efforts; and (3) the effect that the plans have had, or are expected to have, on the quantity and quality of timber sold from federal lands covered by the plans. GAO found that both the process used to develop and implement the Northwest Forest Plan and the process being used to develop a plan to manage federal lands in the interior Columbia River basin address many of the long-standing planning deficiencies that have contributed to delays, increased costs, and unmet objectives in other land management plans. The Forest Service and BLM completed the Northwest Forest Plan expeditiously and at a relatively low cost, while the interior Columbia River basin plan has taken much longer and cost much more than originally expected and has not been approved. Also, timber harvests have declined significantly since the 1980s and will likely remain at current levels under the Northwest Forest Plan.

GAO noted that: (1) both the process used to develop and implement the Northwest Forest Plan and the process being used to develop a plan to manage federal lands in the interior Columbia River basin address many of the long-standing planning deficiencies that have contributed to delays, increased costs, and unmet objectives in other land management plans; (2) the Forest Service and BLM completed the Northwest Forest Plan expeditiously and at a relatively low cost, while the interior Columbia River basin plan has taken much longer and cost much more than originally expected and has not yet been approved; (3) the Northwest Forest Plan was developed in 1 year at a cost of about $3.5 million; (4) this was a timely and cost-effective effort compared with past national forest planning efforts that took from 3 to 10 years to complete and, in the Pacific Northwest, cost between $5 million and $8 million even though they covered much smaller areas; (5) the timeliness of the plan was, in part, a function of the fact that the agencies had been gathering data on the old-growth forest habitat of the northern spotted owl for many years; (6) although the agencies' 5-year effort to develop a plan for the interior Columbia River basin has overcome some long-standing deficiencies, it has not yet led to a final plan; (7) the ongoing project has already taken 2-1/2 years longer and, at $41 million, cost $10 million more than anticipated; (8) some of the delays and higher costs to date have occurred because the agencies underestimated the time and effort required to address the ecological diversity and broad array of land management issues that exist in the interior Columbia River basin; (9) GAO also believes that their originally proposed alternatives did not give adequate information to stakeholders on how and with what effect the alternatives would be implemented; (10) timber harvests have declined significantly since the 1980s and will likely remain at current levels under the Northwest Forest Plan; (11) existing laws have resulted in less federal land being available for timber production and less timber being produced from the land that is available; (12) moreover, the Forest Service and BLM overestimated the volume of timber to be harvested under their original preferred management alternative for federal lands in the interior Columbia River basin; and (13) as a result, the agencies created unrealistic expectations for relatively high timber harvests that would probably not have occurred.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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