The conference was put on by an international consortium called "The
Katoomba Group." This was their first gathering within the United States. Here
is a brief introduction to The Katoomba Group, from Corpwatch:
Ten years ago, the US Forest Service introduced the concept of recreation
user-fees and experiential-pricing as it's entree into the brave new world
of Libertarian ideology and free-markets. A handful of my peers and all "New
Environmentalists" loved the idea of commodifying the Great Outdoors. I did not.
Likewise a few of my peers and all New-Environmentalists already love the
concept of ecosystem pricing. I do not.
Ecosystem pricing stands poised to become the final sell out of the
progressive environmental movement and a complete capitulation of righteous
activism to the forces of markets and corporate capitalism. I ask my peers to
please pull back from this brink and move the debate away from talk of
"markets." That is not our language and it is not where we should be.
PS... For additional background, see: "The Invisible Green Hand:
Markets could be a potent force for greenery — if only greens could learn to
love them."
The Forest Service's Role in Markets for Ecosystem
Services
Forest Service Associate Chief Sally
Collins
Portland Katoomba, Portland , OR — June 8, 2006
I would like to begin by thanking Michael Jenkins and Bettina Von Hagen for
inviting me here today. Both are extraordinary leaders in forestry conservation
and partners we are proud to have joined with on a number of ideas and
initiatives.
Why Are We Involved?
The most common question I get when
I talk about ecosystem markets is, “Why is the Forest Service involved?” The
second question is, “Does the Forest Service expect to sell carbon credits off
national forest land?” I think that’s because most people think only about the
193 million acres of national forest land when they think of us. And there’s no
doubt that these lands abound in ecosystem goods and services. For example, we
manage:
- 5 million acres of wetlands,
- 200,000 miles of fishable streams,
- 28 million acres of wild turkey habitat,
- 80 percent of the elk and bighorn sheep habitat in lower 48 states,
- 50 percent of the nation’s trout and salmon habitat, and
- drinking water for more than 60 million people.
So, clearly these lands are important sources of ecosystem goods and
services. But the U.S. Forest Service also has a significant role to play in
research and development and in supporting private, state, local, and tribal
forest ownerships.
Actually, our mission reads, “to sustain the health, diversity, and
productivity of the nation’s forests,” all 749 million acres of them in the
United States . What we know is this: To protect biodiversity, clear air, and
clean water, we have to manage ecosystems across landscapes, the public lands
alongside the private.
Of course we have lots of work to do on national forest land to restore it to
a healthy condition, given the threats from climate change, invasive species,
and uncharacteristically severe fire, as well as from insects and diseases. Yet,
despite all these challenges, we will always have our national forests and
grasslands.
But it’s another story on private lands; hence our interest in ecosystem
services markets. Today, the U.S. timber industry—small and large—is in
transition. Large timberland owners are selling land in huge quantities, and
small family-run operations are failing everywhere. Some of this has to do with
increased costs and international competition; some with rising real estate
values. In any case, the future of these lands is uncertain. And with real
estate investment trusts buying so many of these lands, we can guess that many
of them will not remain forested.
During the 1980s, the average loss of working farms and ranches to
development nationwide was more than 3,000 acres per day; during the 1990s, the
average loss rose to more than 5,000 acres per day. Focusing only on the threat
to forests, in the next 25 years, we estimate that more than 44 million acres of
private forests in the lower 48 states will be at risk of development. That is
an area about the size of Pennsylvania and West Virginia combined.
We are looking to market-based approaches such as trading for ecosystem
services credits to mobilize the investments needed to protect and restore these
lands. So we have been diving into this, sometimes over our heads, but immersed
nonetheless.
Very simplistically, trading ecosystem services is predicated on two things:
having ecosystem services and a market. The Forest Service is uniquely
positioned to help provide ecosystem services. As forest and rangeland managers,
we specialize in knowing how land management practices affect ecological
systems. We also house the largest forestry research and development
organization in the world.
With respect to markets, we must at the very least understand what it takes
to establish them, partly because we need to know how federal actions—including
our own—affect private markets for ecosystem services. We know that:
- Markets require uniformity or consistency in the products for sale;
- Robust markets require keen attention to transaction costs, especially those
inadvertently or unnecessarily imposed;
- Markets require opportunities for price discovery and transaction oversight;
- It can help to have aggregators who bundle services, particularly where
landownership patterns are highly fragmented; and
- Markets require strong accountability and monitoring.
We also know—from watching these markets worldwide over the last decade—that
they do not develop automatically. They require careful intervention … helping
beneficiaries of the ecosystem services understand the need to invest in
providing the services they depend on. The link between provider and beneficiary
is key.
What Are We Doing?
At the Forest Service today, we are
working hard to understand all this—frankly, with respect not only to
biodiversity, but also to water quality, carbon, wetlands, and other ecosystem
services markets that are emerging around us. Let me share with you a few things
we are doing:
- Over the past three years, we have put all of our senior leadership through
seminars on global forestry trends. Many of you here have participated in those;
and Forest Trends, of course, helped to develop them.
- Also, at the Forest Service’s Centennial Congress last year, loss of
ecosystem services was a top concern voiced by partners from all over the
country. We followed up by hosting three focus groups, where we listened to our
partners’ ideas and explored some of the opportunities for creating markets for
ecosystem services. There was universal support for further exploring ecosystem
services markets.
- We are looking into estimating the dollar value of ecosystem assets and
annual services on Forest Service lands. Our Forest Service scientists are
working with University of Florida researchers on this question. Not
surprisingly, a preliminary estimate of the value National Forest System lands
is in the trillions of dollars.
This exercise—an assessment of embodied
energy based on work by H.T. Odum—calculates ecosystem value through the hidden
energy captured in the organization and construction of living things. Just
think of the energy going into producing a species over evolutionary
time!
What I find most intriguing is the comparative value of
biodiversity relative to other values like water. In the case of one particular
forest, the value of its more than thirteen hundred species was found to be
120,000 times larger than the value of its surface water. Of course, such
evaluations are based on assumptions that are open to question; my point is that
the value of biodiversity can be surprisingly high.
- We are considering using Forest Service lands as laboratories to test some
market-based ideas, using the national forests for fuels treatments, biomass
utilization, and carbon credits pilots. The Regional Foresters and Station
Directors are moving ahead with these ideas.
- We are testing forest certification on several national forests.
- We are going to ensure, over the next year, that all our paper and wood
products purchases are from companies and places that harvest legally and
sustainably.
- Finally, the Forest Service will use the greenhouse-gases protocols
established by the Department of Energy to develop an overall inventory of our
greenhouse gas emissions. Over the next year, the national forests and other
Forest Service locations will establish an emission baseline, and they will be
expected to monitor reductions.
Clarifying Purpose
I’ll close by saying this: Sometimes
the most surprising shifts are the ones that happen by accident. I think that is
what is happening for us in the Forest Service as the idea of ecosystem services
is introduced. As the era of large-scale, industrial-type timber production has
drawn to a close and the organization has shifted focus to restoration,
ecosystem services has provided a kind of clarifying purpose—a small but
important shift in our thinking.
I think, as new forest plans are developed, that we will begin to see a new
language emerge. The concept of multiple-use management could once again evolve,
this time refocused, perhaps, on sustaining multiple ecosystem services.
It would be a great evolutionary step for us and for conservation.
- Privatization 
