advocating for endangered species
drafting environmental legislation
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The Multiple Use Doctrine
There are Conflicts Inherent in the Multiple-Use Doctrine
(Compatible Use should Supersede Multiple-Use)
Historic Prioritization of Resource Extraction
Overall, the policy defining Multiple Use from 1905 until the passage of the Federal Land Management and Policy Act in 1976 (FLMPA) was one that exclusively prioritized resource extraction and industry. When the Bureau of Land Management was established in 1946, it still very much catered to natural resource extraction interests such as mining, fossil fuel extraction, and timber harvesting.
By the 1950s, the National Forests no longer held enough resources to meet the growing needs of an increasing population and expanding economy. Now, for the first time the agency had a specific congressional directive which stipulated that economic return was not in all cases to be the guiding factor in determining the best use of public lands. America’s public lands include, but are not limited to, U.S. Forest Service Land, US Park Service Land, state land, and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land. Since 1976, the prevailing doctrine for managing public lands has been the Multiple Use policy, defined as “…The management of the public lands and their various resource values so that they are utilized in the combination that will best meet the present and future needs of the American people....” . Yet demands upon the land in various locations, change over time.
The Multiple Use - Sustained Yield Act of 1960 (or MUSYA) (The Multiple Use Doctrine) (or Public Law 86-517) was passed by the United States Congress on June 12, 1960. This law authorizes and directs the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to develop and administer the renewable resources of timber, range, water, recreation and wildlife on the national forests for multiple use and sustained yield of the products and services. This is the first law to have the five major uses of national forests contained in one law equally, with no use greater than any other.
A Paradigm Shift
The Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLMPA) of 1976 marks a paradigm shift in the fundamental purpose of Multiple Use. The FLPMA mandates “harmonious and coordinated management of the various resources.” It also adapts the Multiple Use doctrine to include recreation and “natural scenic, scientific and historical values.”
The 1976 shift changed the purpose of these public lands from a one-dimensional focus on resource extraction to a multi-dimensional picture, featuring recreation and conservation as valid uses alongside traditional resource extraction. With this came a fundamental shift in meaning of the term “resource.” Now, resources are not only seen as material—they also include land to use for recreation, aesthetic pleasure, or even conserving the land and doing nothing at all.
But how “harmonious” can it be to manage the various resources on public land? Certainly, logging must be seen as being in direct opposition to the conservation of our forests. And activities such as mining and fossil fuel extraction often involve the cutting of trees; flattening of mountaintops; leaching of toxic oils, chemicals, and mine tailings into nearby rivers, lakes, and aquifers. These activities and their consequent negative externalities can have profound adverse impacts upon the human population, upon the endangered species, and upon their nearby wildlife habitats.
Tradeoffs in the Sawtooth National Forest
Recently, a Stanford University group led by Stefan Norgaard and Maddy Sides examined conflict and compromise in the application of the Multiple Use Land Management Policy in Idaho’s Sawtooth National Forest. Their background data indicated that in 1996, federal grazing only generated 0.30% of total state employment in Idaho and 0.23% of total state income, despite using a vast area of Idaho’s federal lands. More recently, in 2011, grazing on the Sawtooth National Forest (SNF) directly served the interests of only 145 permittees (in the form of 23 grazing allotments), occupying 83% of the total area of the SNF. Yet, that same year, recreation in the Sawtooth National Forest directly served the interests of 1.25 million individuals. The land used for grazing is technically open to public use, although recreationists find these areas “less ideal” for recreation, and ranchers often fence off these lands and find other ways to block or intimidate other users from utilizing these lands. Only 17% of land in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area is reserved exclusively for recreation and conservation.
There are also damages and dangers associated with recreation: motorized vehicles have a significant impact. In addition, overuse of the land has been creating serious problems in the area such as damage to rehabilitated wetlands. Per the Stanford group, “all of these interests seem to have valid claims to the land based on the current definition of Multiple Use, so perhaps the status quo will have to change.”
Compatible Use Must Supersede Multiple Use
The Stanford group concludes by attempting to reconcile the often-harsh conflicts that pervade the federal Multiple Use policy. In the span of their study, they heard from diverse interest groups, each with different claims to the land. The group evaluated methods for making effective social compromise, and found that grassroots negotiation is a more effective tool for change “than legislation, advocacy, or government intervention could ever hope to be.”
Each interest group or user group of public lands makes arguments about why its use should be primary and why competing uses are problematic to these “primary” users. For example, conservationists say that ranching is one of the primary causes of native species endangerment and that it is also the most significant cause of non-point water pollution and desertification (per the Western Watersheds Project).
Other literature, in this case by J. Boone Kauffman, PhD, focuses on land use conflicts: “In the Intermountain West and Great Basin, about 85% of native animal species are dependent on riparian zones…given that riparian areas make up only 0.5 to 2 percent of the landscape, their value in terms of biological diversity is incomparable…as much as 81% of the forage removed by livestock within a grazing allotment can come from the 2 percent of the land area occupied by the riparian zone…through time, the direct effects of livestock can…dramatically change the structure, function, and composition of the riparian zone.”
One suggestion from the Stanford Multiple Use study is that we may need to shift from a policy of Multiple Use to one of Compatible Use. (In other words, shifting away from “Us versus Them” and replacing it with an “Us AND THEM” mindset.) Another suggestion is that use of public land cannot always be dictated by “personal self interest.”
Certainly, if use of public lands is dominated by the hunt for corporate profits, the natural resource conservation function embedded in the Multiple Use Doctrine will be permanently, and tragically, undermined.