USA: Consensus is always the best way to kill an ecosystem?

Western lands management has suffered for 20-plus years from a
disastrous move toward consensus decision-making. There is no known
way to more effectively purge the “best available science” and broad
public access than to move to local control and consensus. This has
not happened by default; it’s a right-wing, Republican-driven agenda
that envisions essentially privatized decision-making and control of
public lands and processes. It has gained immense strength since
Ronald Reagan, did not lose any momentum under Bill Clinton, and rose
to new heights under George W. Bush. Dan Kemmis, former mayor of
Missoula, Mont., where he oversaw explosive population growth that ate
up virtually every inch of land possible, has been mentioned by
consensus beneficiaries as possible undersecretary of Agriculture
(overseeing the Forest Service). Such an appointment would be a tragic
mistake. I see little evidence he understands, appreciates or supports
the broad use of ecological science to under-pin decisions about
public lands and biological diversity conservation. He would continue
to move away from the brilliant visions and legislation born in the
middle 1900s and would strengthen the privatization agenda of
special-interest users like the timber, grazing and oil and gas
industries. There is a role for public lands in the battle to reverse
global climate disruption, but Kemmis and collaboration/consensus
decision-making will not fulfill that role.

Public lands management
has continued not just to drift, but to rush, toward the lowest common
denominator. We would not have elected Barack Obama if it had been a
consensus-based selection process. The only effective role public
lands can play in the global climate agenda is to dramatically
increase and recover the ecological integrity of the landscape. That
means removing and reducing industrialization (including logging, even
when couched in the name of forest health) and motorization that has
fragmented and degraded ecosystems. That is the only means by which
more robust wildlife and fish populations can be achieved, which are
essential for even a chance of surviving the changes already in the
pipeline. This requires breaking the “locals know best” mold that has
framed debate about and constrained conservation management on public
lands since the 1970s. Kemmis and, I’m afraid, recently appointed
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar of Colorado, won’t do that. The
continued nonsense about “experimentation” has degraded the regulatory
process and the ecological integrity of public lands for the past 30
years. To circumvent the best available science and the interests of
all Americans (blue states and red states, east and west, north and
south, with and without public lands, etc.) there has been a steady
stream of “initiatives” to displace science and regulatory and
democratic public process. Framed as innovation, experimentation,
collaboration, partnerships, consensus and other “broken wing”
strategies, all have led away from the tried and true measures of land
and wildlife conservation: roadless lands, low road densities, very
limited industrialization and very limited motorization.
http://www.csindy.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A33775

— Posted to http://forestpolicyresearch.com via gmail to posterous and
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Posted via email from Deane’s posterous