Opinion ID: 153019
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Compliance with the NFMA and the NWFP

Text: The NWFP requires LSRs to be managed to protect and enhance conditions of late-successional and old-growth forest ecosystems. NWFP 8. The NWFP has [g]uidelines to reduce risks of large-scale disturbance, which provide that [s]ilvicultural activities aimed at reducing risk shall focus on younger stands in [LSRs], and the scale of ... treatments should not generally result in degeneration of currently suitable owl habitat or other late-successional conditions. To avoid degeneration, logging and other ground-disturbing activities are generally prohibited in LSRs. Or. Natural Res. Council Fund v. Brong, 492 F.3d 1120, 1126 (9th Cir. 2007) (quoting Seattle Audubon Soc'y, 871 F.Supp. at 1304-05). However, the NWFP permits logging activities in LSRs if: (1) the proposed management activities will clearly result in greater assurance of long-term maintenance of habitat, (2) the activities are clearly needed to reduce risks, and (3) the activities will not prevent the [LSRs] from playing an effective role in the objectives for which they were established. Standards and Guidelines for Management of Late-Successional and Old-Growth Forest Related Species within the Range of the Northern Spotted Owl C-13 (April 13, 1994) [hereinafter NWFP S. & G.]. The NWFP acknowledges that some logging may reduce the quality of habitat for late-successional organisms and that managers need to seek a balanced approach that reduces the risk of fire while protecting large areas of fire-prone late-successional forest. NWFP S. & G. B-7. Our highest deference is owed to the Forest Service's technical analyses and judgments within its area of expertise, Lands Council, 537 F.3d at 993; nonetheless, our dissenting colleague would have us halt the Forest Service's Project because he does not like the Forest Service's approach to solving the problems addressed. We went en banc to foreclose precisely this type of second-guessing of the Forest Service. See id. at 988(noting that in recent years, our environmental jurisprudence has, at times, shifted away from the appropriate standard of review and could be read to suggest that this court should act as a panel of scientists that instructs the Forest Service how to perform its expert duties). The Forest Service thoroughly considered various reasonable approaches to protect and enhance conditions of the LRSs, NWFP S. & G. at C-11, and offered a plan that does not run[ ] counter to the evidence before the agency or is so implausible that it could be not ascribed to a difference in view or the product of agency expertise, Earth Island Inst. v. U.S. Forest Serv., 442 F.3d 1147, 1156 (9th Cir.2006), abrogated on other grounds by Winter v. Natural Re. Def. Council, Inc., ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 365, 172 L.Ed.2d 249 (2008). Far from conflicting with the protection of LSRs, carefully controlled logging is a tool expressly authorized by the NWFP for long-term LSR maintenance. Our dissenting colleague simply articulates a different point of view, and an extreme one at that. He begins by implying that the law provides that under no circumstances can any old growth timber be cut from an LSR. Dissent at 1140-41. Eventually, however, our colleague reluctantly admits that is simply not the case. Dissent at 1141 ([T]he NWFP ... recognize[s] that in some LRSs [including the Davis LSR], stand management that includes older trees may be considered.). Thus, it is clear that the limited logging of LSR trees of all types and ages is permissible if such logging complies with the three NWFP requirements previously described. There is no dispute that the Forest Service correctly identified that standard. The question, then, is not whether such logging within the LSR is generally permitted, but whether the Forest Service's determination that the NWFP requirements for cutting some trees in an LSR were met was arbitrary or capricious. We now turn to that analysis. After the Davis fire, the Forest Service determined that logging was necessary to protect the Davis LSR from future fires and that the Project met the three NWFP criteria for logging within LSRs. It noted that in the previous five years, approximately 16,654 acres of NRF habitat ha[d] been lost mostly due to wildfires. The Project, in comparison, calls for thinning only 618 acres of NRF habitat. This would leave 93 percent of existing NRF habitat and 96 percent of spotted owl critical habitat in the Davis LSR. The Project would reduce fire risks by 40 percent over Alternative A(the no action alternative). Wildfire accounted for 75 percent of the disturbance-caused loss of spotted owl habitat between 1994 and 2003. After a lengthy and thorough discussion of the alternatives considered, the Forest Service concluded that: Alternative C best responds to the issue of impacts to the northern spotted owl because [1] Alternative C would alter fewer acres of NRF habitat than Alternative B; [2] Alternative C would maintain at least three areas of habitat that are available for immediate occupancy by dispersing or relocating spotted owls; and [3] Alternative C provides the best strategy for risk reduction and long-term maintenance of spotted owl habitat on the landscape. According to the Forest Service's modeling, in Alternative C, fires appear to have the least travel times and protect [spotted] owl home ranges the best. [6] After comparing the alternatives, the Forest Service determined that this plan would clearly result in greater assurance of long-term maintenance of habitat, given the high threat of another catastrophic wildfire. In fact, it found that the [p]roposed activities would not only reduce risk of large-scale disturbance, but would accelerate the ability of the Davis LSR to play a role for which late-successional reserves were established. The Conservation Groups challenge the Forest Service's conclusions on three grounds. First, the Conservation Groups allege that the Forest Service knew that the Project would not clearly result in greater assurance of long-term maintenance of habitat. There are two related problems with this position. The Conservation Groups rely heavily on a section of the EIS labeled Issues to suggest that the Forest Service knew that the treatments would have long-term detrimental effects on spotted owl habitat. This section states: These activities may reduce the quality, effectiveness, and the distribution of habitat available to the northern spotted owl in the planning area for the short- and long-term as well as directly, indirectly and/or cumulatively. However, this excerpt is simply a republication of potential issues identified by the public and the Forest Service; it is not a finding made by the Forest Service and is not, as the Conservation Groups allege, evidence that the Forest Service specifically determined that such damage would actually occur. More to the point, however, there is no dispute that the Forest Service knew of (and acknowledged) possible detrimental effects to the spotted owl. Specifically, it stated that [i]n those units proposed for commercial timber harvest the conversion of existing NRF habitat to a foraging and dispersal condition is expected to be at least a short-term effect. The Forest Service also estimated that [b]ased on modeling, the return to NRF conditions will take 2-5 decades depending on the thinning intensity prescribed. [7] The Conservation Groups' statement of harms obfuscates the issue, which is not how long the harms might last but whether the benefits will outweigh the costs in the long-term. Thus, the Forest Service's alleged admissions about possible harms actually describe the balancing of risks that the Forest Service was required to undertake. Such balancing is entirely appropriate under the NWFP, which states that treatments in LSRs may reduce the quality of habitat for late-successional organisms, and that managers need to seek a balanced approach that reduces risk of fire while protecting large areas of fire-prone late-successional forest. NWFP B-8 (emphasis added). After detailing possible detrimental effects, the Forest Service made clear that those effects were limited and relatively short-term and, most importantly, would be outweighed by the overall improvement and continued viability of spotted owl NRF habitat. Indeed, it seems that avoiding detrimental effects altogether was impossible, because the Forest Service found that [a]ll alternatives, including passive management, [m]ay affect, and are likely to adversely affect[,] the northern spotted owl. Five Buttes ROD 13. [8] Second, the Conservation Groups argue that the Forest Service failed to consider a study published by Forest Service scientists examining the Forest Service's forest treatment and fire models. See Alan A. Ager, et al., Modeling Wildfire Risk to Northern Spotted Owl (Strix Occidentalis Caurina ) Habitat in Central Oregon, USA, 246 Forest Ecology & Mgmt. 45 (2007) (the Ager study). Unlike past studies, the Ager study examined the possibility of risk reduction without treatments within spotted owl territory. Id. at 54. As an initial matter, the Ager study was published after the administrative record was closed and the Forest Service had made its final decision, and well after the Forest Service developed the Project. Its relevance to what the Forest Service knew about the viability of risk-reduction exclusively outside of spotted owl territory is tenuous at best. Second, the Ager study was intended as a general examination of modeling capabilities, not as a means of determining an appropriate course of action for the Project. Ager Study 46 (In this paper, we describe a wildfire risk analysis system for quantifying potential wildfire impacts on spotted owl habitat and measuring the efficacy of landscape fuel treatment on reducing risk.). The study estimated that, by logging 20 percent of the forest area outside spotted owl habitat, the Forest Service could reduce the average burn probability by 44 percent. Ager Study 50, Table 1. Alternative C, which includes logging in some unoccupied spotted owl habitat, would reduce burn probability by 40 percent. Thus, the Conservation Groups use the Ager study as a strawman because the study did not determine if it was possible, let alone desirable, to log 20 percent of the Project Area. Alternative C, in comparison, treats less than 6 percent of the Project Area with almost the same reduction of burn probability. In fact, the Ager study itself acknowledges that allowing treatments within spotted owl habitat in the present study would have substantially decreased the expected habitat loss at a given treatment intensity. Ager Study 55(emphases added). Because the Forest Service is tasked with developing a viable plan that will clearly result in the long-term maintenance of spotted owl habitat, we fail to see how the Ager study, which deals with general modeling capabilities and experimental risk-reduction approaches, contradicts the Forest Service's practical determination that some logging in the Davis LSR was clearly necessary to retain long-term forest and species health. Finally, the Conservation Groups claim that it was not clearly necessary to cut larger diameter trees. The Groups raised this issue with the Forest Service after reviewing the draft EIS, and the Forest Service actively considered the alternative of thinning only small diameter trees by conducting additional modeling. The Forest Service found that modeling of fire behavior and vegetation indicated that small diameter thinning by itself would not considerably change the expected fire behavior on a landscape scale. In the ROD, the Forest Service also explained that [r]eduction of competition between trees in overstocked sites through commercial thinning is a hedge against epidemic loss of the larger trees to insect and disease. Thus, the Forest Service determined that cutting some [9] larger diameter trees was clearly necessary and met the NWFP standard. In sum, the Conservation Groups have not demonstrated that the Forest Service made a clear error of judgment in determining that the proposed treatments conformed with the NWFP, or that the decision to implement Alternative C was arbitrary or capricious. [10] See Lands Council, 537 F.3d at 993 (holding that the proper role for a reviewing court is simply to ensure that the Forest Service made no clear error of judgment that would render its action arbitrary and capricious (internal quotation marks omitted)). We agree with the dissent's sentiment regarding the importance of a[n] LSR in fulfilling the objectives of the NWFP. Dissent at 1139. We differ from the dissent, however, in our view that no member of the panel is better equipped than the experts at the Forest Service to determine how best to fulfill those objectives. That task goes to the very heart of the Forest Service's expertise. Indeed, where the Forest Service has determined that stand treatments are clearly needed to reduce risks, will clearly result in greater assurance of long term maintenance of habitat, and will not prevent the LSR from playing the role for which they were established, NWFP S. & G. at C-13, we should be loathe to second guess their efforts absent some glaring error, oversight, or arbitrary action, lest we be the ones who upset the LSR's ancient and intricate process ... because we do not fully understand [its] inner workings, Dissent at 1138. As the Conservation Groups conceded at oral argument, the district court's holding that [t]he findings in the ROD are not strong enough to meet the NWFP standard does not accord the Forest Service proper deference. Because we find that the Project does not reflect any clear error in judgment by the Forest Service, we reverse the district court and hold that the Project does not violate the NFMA.