Forest Service: Continued Work Needed to Address Persistent Management Challenges - GAO

This Government Accountability Office testimony (GAO-11-423T), dated March 10, 2011, states that "in 2009, GAO highlighted management challenges that the Forest Service faced in three key areas—wildland fire management, data on program activities and costs, and financial and performance accountability. The Forest Service has made some improvements, but challenges persist in each of these three areas. In addition, recent GAO reports have identified additional challenges related to program oversight and strategic planning."

Forest Service Research and Development: Improvements in Delivery of Research Results Can Help Ensure That Benefits of Research Are Realized -- GAO

This Government Accountability Office report (GAO-11-12), dated October 29, 2010, finds that the scope of Forest Service R&D’s work spans a range of research organized into seven strategic program areas: invasive species; inventory and monitoring; outdoor recreation; resource management and use; water, air, and soils; wildland fire; and wildlife and fish.

End users identified areas requiring additional attention by Forest Service R&D, such as social science research to better understand human interaction with natural resources. Forest Service R&D has taken steps to improve its ability to fulfill its mission in several areas, including increasing its efforts to deliver knowledge and tools to end users and involving end users in setting research agendas; improving funding allocation processes; and increasing coordination with other federal research
agencies.

Despite these efforts, challenges persist, particularly in the area of science delivery—that is, how research results are communicated. While Forest Service R&D has created a more formal system for science delivery at multiple levels within the agency, and several research stations have specific programs dedicated to science delivery, numerous officials and end users told GAO that Forest Service R&D places greater emphasis on peer-reviewed journals as a means of science delivery than on other types of science delivery efforts, such as workshops, that are often more useful to end users. Without improved delivery of research results, land managers and others may be unable to fully benefit from the agency’s work.

Southwest Border: More Timely Border Patrol Access and Training Could Improve Security Operations and Natural Resource Protection on Federal Lands

This Report to Congressional Requesters (GAO-11-38) dated, October 19, 2010 finds that to improve the effectiveness of Border Patrol operations while also protecting cultural and natural resources on federal lands along the southwestern border, we recommend that the Secretaries of Homeland Security, the Interior, and Agriculture take the following two actions:

•To help expedite Border Patrol’s access to federal lands, the agencies should, when and where appropriate, (a) enter into agreements that provide for Customs and Border Protection to use its own resources to pay for or to conduct the required environmental and historic property assessments and (b) prepare programmatic National Environmental Policy Act documents for Border Patrol activities in areas where additional access may be needed.

•As DHS, Interior, and the Forest Service continue developing a national training module on environmental and cultural resource stewardship, the agencies should incorporate the input of Border Patrol agents and land managers into the design and development of training content, which may include training that is recurring, area-specific, and provided by land managers.

Great Outdoors America: The Report of the Outdoor Resources Review Group

This report by the Outdoor Resources Review Group dated July 2009 states that are multiple opportunities to bring about lasting change to enhance the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and offers the eight recommendations:

1. Congress should permanently dedicate funding for the LWCF at the highest historical authorized level.

2. To overcome fragmentation among multiple programs at multiple levels, geospatial
planning tools should be fully utilized to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and
transparency with which the LWCF and other public and private funds are spent.

3. Public and private organizations should aggressively promote recreation and nature
education for America’s youth so as to engage them early in realizing the lifelong
health and other benefits from participating in outdoor activities.

4. Federal, state, and local agencies should continue to promote and support privatesector stewardship through public-private partnerships, joint funding, extended tax benefits for conservation easements, and other incentives.

5. Federal and other public agencies, as the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management are doing, should elevate the priority for regional- or landscape level conservation in their own initiatives and through partnerships across levels of
government, and with land trusts, other nonprofit groups, and private landowners to
conserve America’s treasured landscapes.

6. A new nationwide network of Blueways and water trails along rivers and coastal
waterways should be established through public-private partnerships among federal,
state, and local agencies, nonprofits and private landowners.

7. Any national program to reduce greenhouse gases should include funding to adapt
resource lands and waters to the ecological impacts of climate change.

8. Current structures and funding for outdoor resources are insufficient to meet the needs of a growing population.

Wildland Fire Management: Federal Agencies Have Taken Important Steps Forward, but Additional Action Is Needed to Address Remaining Challenges

This Government Accountability Office Testimony (GAO-09-906T) dated July 21, 2009 states that:

The Forest Service and Interior agencies have taken important steps toward enhancing their ability to protect communities and resources by seeking to (1) make communities and resources less susceptible to being damaged by wildland fire and (2) respond to fire so as to protect communities and important resources at risk while also considering both the cost and long-term effects of that response.

Despite the agencies’ efforts, much work remains. GAO has previously recommended several key actions that, if completed, would substantially improve the agencies’ management of wildland fire. Specifically, the agencies should:

•Develop a cohesive strategy laying out various potential approaches for addressing the growing wildland fire threat.

•Establish a cost-containment strategy that clarifies the importance of containing costs relative to other, often-competing objectives.

•Clarify financial responsibilities for fires that cross federal, state, and local jurisdictions.

•Take action to mitigate the effects of rising fire costs on other agency programs.

Federal Land Management: Use of Stewardship Contracting is Increasing but Agencies could Benefit from Better Data and contracting Strategies

This GAO Report (GAO-09-23) found that between fiscal years 2003 through 2007, the Forest Service and BLM awarded a combined total of 535 stewardship contracts, with the number increasing each year—from 38 in fiscal year 2003 to 172 in fiscal year 2007. However, for certain aspects of stewardship contracting, such as the acres involved or the value of the services exchanged for goods, reliable data were not available for the full 5-year fiscal period because neither agency has had a comprehensive database of its stewardship contracting activity since 2003. The agencies did not begin to maintain nationwide stewardship data until recently, primarily because of difficulties in adapting their systems to account for all aspects of stewardship contracting. Further, these data are not complete, and reside in myriad systems, not all of which interface with one another. These deficiencies keep the agencies and Congress from accurately assessing the costs and value of stewardship contracting.