We were joking today on the bus about how many of us might have chosen to stay in Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor all summer if we were given the choice (which would have made for a brief tour!). As we began to drive through the lush rolling hills of Vermont, however, we knew that would have been a big mistake. Our first stop in the state was in a town called Rutland, where we met with Larry Fisher from the US Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution, a program of the Udall Foundation. Larry had brought together a group of diverse folks who worked for three years to redraw the forest management plan for Green Mountain National Forest, GMNF. Over the course of the afternoon, we engaged them in a discussion about what they learned from the process.
Before our meeting, I didn’t know that the National Forest Management Act requires the Forest Service to use public input to redraw a forest management plan every fifteen years. Forest plans describe the management objectives and guidelines that determine how different parts of the land will be used and are the roadmap for the future of the forest. In the case of Green Mountain, the Forest Service reached out to towns, regional planning commissions, and other local organizations to help facilitate the plan revision process.
The Forest Service worked with the U. S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution to select a neutral mediator who conducted a Situation Assessment, which involved a series of rolling interviews with residents to establish the issues that mattered to people. Based on the results of the assessment, the Forest Service organized 75 focused public meetings in the various towns around Green Mountain – a truly impressive feat – to hear people’s concerns about the forest. The meetings were designed to address different issues related to the forest, such as logging, recreation, wilderness, biodiversity, and socioeconomic concerns. The Forest Service also solicited written comments from the public, in an effort to involve people in the process in as many ways as possible. Based on the public feedback, they drew up alternative plans for Green Mountain, one of which the Forest Service ultimately chose as the new management plan after the public listening period and assessment was complete.
It was great to hear about how the Forest Service engaged so many stakeholders in designing a future direction for Green Mountain National Forest. One interesting thread from our conversation, however, was the issue of whose concerns matter most in the process of creating a forest plan. In the case of Green Mountain, 90 percent of the people who use the land live right on the edge of the forest, and those were the members of the public most actively involved in the plan revision process. Local interests and community-based planning were emphasized by the Forest Service, with the idea that those who are most connected to and invested in a place will be its best stewards.
Yet, Green Mountain is also a National Forest and therefore land that belongs to all the people of the United States. But can those of us who have never been to the forest have a stake in planning its future? Can there even be such a thing as a national interest when it comes to determining how to manage a specific site? In the case of Green Mountain, it seemed that the lesson was that place matters. A collaborative public planning process can only be effective if the “public” decides to participate, and the revision drew many people who cared about the forest because it was more than a place on paper, and instead a place that they had personally experienced.
By: Julie Curti
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