Dr.
Ann Bartuska was Director of the Forest and Rangeland staffs, U.S.
Forest Service, until September 2001.
At that time, she left the Forest Service to take a position
with The Nature Conservancy. As
part of the organization's national staff, she heads their new
Invasive Species Initiative. Dr. Bartuska is also the current President-Elect of the
Ecological Society of America. Section
Editor Daina Dravnieks Apple interviewed Dr. Bartuska for Women in Natural Resources in July 2001.
Women
in Natural Resources:
As you were the first Director of the newly merged Forest
Management and Range Management staffs, could you tell us exactly what
the position entailed?
Ann
Bartuska:
While the position was not yet official [in the summer of
2001], we had begun calling the merged Forest Management and Range
Management staffs "Forest and Rangelands."
We deliberately kept the word "management" out of the
new title, because we believed some of what we would do is not
associated with management, but rather with furthering the
understanding of those ecosystems.
WiNR:
Do the
title and staff changes reflect any changes in Forest Service resource
management policies and practices?
Bartuska:
I think this merger is a logical evolution. Personnel in the Washington Office are actually a bit behind
the curve, so to speak. Many
of the Forest Service regions have already merged the two to better
consider vegetation management.
This merger allows us to look at the continuum of vegetation
issues, from the grasslands to the riparian systems to the forested
ecosystems.
And,
I think we still have some very clear responsibilities on the product
side. We have forest
products, which is the timber piece, as well as special forest
products. We do a lot of work with botanicals, with such things as
beargrass collections, as well as grazing administration.
We think this merger will really help us bridge gaps across the
vegetation continuum, and it also reflects the trend in management to
view things from an ecosystem perspective, rather than from a use
perspective.
WiNR: There's
been a progressive reduction in the amount of timber cut off of
National Forests for about the last ten years.
Do you think that this new staff structure is a response to
that reduction, and perhaps a response to the increasing demand for
other types of forest products, such as mushrooms or other botanicals?
Bartuska:
While I do think that this is a planned, conscious decision on
the part of the agency to move in the direction I've described, I'm
not sure that there really is cause and effect between the change in
timber harvest and this restructuring of the staff.
However, I think it is probably fair to say that the resources
needed to run a 12 billion boardfoot timber harvest program
[nationally] required a very large amount of "people effort"
focusing on the accountability associated with such a large operation.
And, as the timber program has been reduced, these same people
have had more opportunity to use their skills and expertise to look
more broadly at the ecosystems under Forest Service management.
To me, it has never made sense, for instance, to develop an
inventory and monitoring system that is plot-based for vegetation that
looks at grasslands in totally different ways than it does
forestlands. We ought to
be able to integrate these data, and I think this new approach will
really help to facilitate that.
WiNR:
The
Forest Service had a new Chief appointed in April 2001.
Chief Dale Bosworth's background as a professional forester and
former Regional Forester seems to be very acceptable, that is, appears
moderate, to both the environmental community and more
commodity-oriented interests. Where
do you see the agency headed under the leadership of Chief Bosworth?
Bartuska:
I think the appointment of the new Chief is very exciting.
I think he brings a solid grounding in how natural resource
management needs to work to be successful.
He was Regional Forester in Region 1, and that area has both
some of the most pristine lands in our nation, as well as some areas
that were very actively managed.
Region 1 includes northern Idaho and western Montana, and is a
very complex terrain. There's
also intense social interest in this region.
It's a place where we've had some very active timber harvest
and grazing programs historically, but also some fantastic wilderness
areas are found there. So,
both ends of the spectrum are well-represented in that Region.
The new Chief brings to his job a solid grounding in how
"today's forests work" as well as the views of the American
public. He understands
how people at the local level think about
these forests, and how they can benefit from them.
This practicality is really important, especially in a position
that will be busy and full of so many tasks, jobs, agendas, and goals.
In my experience with Dale Bosworth in the past, his pragmatism
has always helped him to find the way to make things work.
With that said, though, I don't think he will take the Forest
Service back to a time, say 20 to 30 years ago, when the agency had a
very different way of doing business.
I think he'll use his pragmatic approach to address today's
issues. For instance, I
know he has high respect for what his predecessor, Chief Michael
Dombeck, did with highlighting the need for greater consideration of
roadless areas. I think
that many people in the Forest Service feel really good about what
Chief Bosworth will bring to the agency.
WiNR: Let's
discuss some of the social issues in forest management that you
alluded to. Can you go
into more detail regarding what you see as the important social
impacts on natural resource management?
Bartuska:
We have a large segment of the American public wanting to
protect lands, wanting to protect their legacy, even though they never
see these lands. We also
have small communities, throughout the western U.S. in particular, but
even in the eastern U.S., that are dependent on our federal
lands—National Forests included.
If people in these communities don't have the ability to use
these federal lands as part of their economic base, we will loose
these communities.
I
think it will be a real tragedy to loose this part of the American
landscape. These rural
communities are part of our culture.
For instance, it would be a real tragedy if we could not go out
west and find cowboys. And,
the public doesn't want cartoon cowboys or TV cowboys, they want real,
working cowboys. There has been an increase in Americans taking vacations
where they work the ranch for a week.
So, there is real interest in this way of life, and in
preserving it.
This
is a real social dilemma, because to keep these kinds of communities,
they have to have a way to survive economically, and that can often
mean that there needs to be jobs associated with those nearby public
lands. I think that one of the transitions we are going through,
though, is that now those jobs don't have to be timber jobs or grazing
jobs. Those kinds of jobs
might be included, but there could also be restoration jobs.
We have the opportunity to create a much more dynamic market
and to diversify economies at a local level.
There are some tools that the Forest Service has been trying to
use through our State and Private program that approach this problem.
For example, the Economic Action program helps give a little
jump-start to a community to try something new and to build new
businesses.
Another
social issue that we will continue to grapple with concerns
recreation: how large can recreational use grow on federal lands,
before it acquires the same potential destructive force as, in the
view of many people, cutting down timber.
I think the potential is there for recreation to become
destructive—the idea of overuse to such an extent that we "love
a place to death." In
Yellowstone, Yosemite, and other places, that's a reality.
And another issue is global population pressures.
This past year our human population hit 6 billion worldwide . .
. there are so many factors and issues that intersect on federal lands
and have an impact on resource management.
Another
issue of great concern to me is invasive species. Social and resource policies and actions are impacting the
invasion of non-native species into our natural ecosystems.
People move around so much these days, across states, across
the country, and in other countries.
Our lifestyle allows extensive travel, and it's so very common
for people to vacation overseas. One day you can be walking in the bush somewhere else on the
globe, and the next day be back in your own backyard, but with the
same shoes on, and this is just one way that you can bring back
"uninvited guests" such as the seeds of non-native plants.
And
it is also very common these days for timber to be imported from other
countries, such as Canada. There
has been tremendous growth in trade with Asian countries and imports
from them, such as China. So,
there is only increasing potential for non-native invasive species to
come in and change our landscapes dramatically.
WiNR:
You've been heavily
involved in the development of a national policy for the containment
and eradication of invasive species.
How did you get involved in this?
Bartuska:
In 1994, I became the Director of the Forest Health Protection
Staff of the Forest Service. I
held that position for 4 1/2 years.
We had the responsibility for working with forest insects and
diseases, but we also expanded into providing technical support for
dealing with non-native weeds. It
was through that experience that I became aware of how widespread the
impacts of these invasive species are throughout our country, and
around the world. Because
of invasives, we loose production, loose access, or have to pay for
treatments—all of this adds up to an impact on our economy that
totals in the billions of dollars annually.
An example is kudzu in our southern forests.
In order to keep these forests viable, we have to keep the
kudzu out, and that eradication costs money.
But
besides this clear economic cost, invasive species also impact us and
our natural ecosystems through loss of native biodiversity.
Over half of the species present in Hawaii today are non-native
invasive species, and these populations are continuing to expand
there. It would be a real
shame to loose the native ecosystems of the Hawaiian Islands, and
that's true of other native ecosystems that are under threat from
invasive species today. The
eastern oak woodlands have been under attack from Gypsy moths now for
about a century, and the moths continue to move south.
WiNR: One
problem is that some of these invasive species are very attractive and
people unknowingly spread the problem by choosing to use them.
Can you describe an example of this?
Bartuska:
Purple loosestrife is a good example—it's a tall, elegant
flowering plant that many people like to see in their backyard
gardens, but it's a rampant invasive and does spectacularly well in
the wild once it spreads from those gardens where it has been
intentionally planted. It
continues to be sold in plant nurseries, so we aren't doing very well
from an educational standpoint yet, so that everyone understands the
impact of these non-native species.
There are plenty of native plants for the backyard gardener to
use that are equally as beautiful.
I think that working with nursery growers and retailers will be
key to getting control of the spread of many of these invasive
non-native species.
WiNR: Explain
for us why these non-native species are "bad."
Bartuska:
These species are categorized as "invasive" because,
as non-natives, they flourish in the environment and yet have no
natural deterrents, such as a predator if the non-native species is an
animal or an insect, or some other limiting factor, if the non-native
is a plant. Native
species generally do not spread uncontrollably because there are other
components of the ecosystem that constrain the population after it
reaches a certain point. This
might be disease or it might be a competing species.
The non-natives spread, and continue to spread, unchecked by
limiting factors. An
example form Hawaii is Miconia. It's
a beautiful plant with wide purple leaves.
It will grow so that it takes over an area completely, and
shades the area so that the entire groundcover is lost.
Then the area is very susceptible to erosion, and when heavy
rains come a lot of the soil will be washed into streams and the
hydrology of the watershed is changed.
The loss of water quality and quantity downstream is an impact
that people readily understand.
If we have to prioritize our "hit list" for invasives,
I think we should be going after these types of species that wreak
such major havoc on local ecosystems.
WiNR: Educating
people seems key to success. Perhaps
focusing on nurseries is an excellent place to start.
Bartuska:
The states have been involved in combating invasives for quite
some time. Weed boards
have been focused on invasive species for years, first in agricultural
areas but more recently in other areas focused on natural resources.
The work done at the local level by these weed boards is
remarkable. They have
been involved in developing educational materials both for schools and
for the general public.
WiNR: Your
professional background is unusually varied, compared to former
Directors of both the Timber and Range staffs in the Forest Service.
Will you tell us about your personal history?
Bartuska:
Let me start at the beginning—well, not all the way back!
When completing my graduate degrees, all of the research that I
have done has dealt with disturbed landscapes.
I looked at surface mine impacts during work on all three
degrees that I hold. I
conducted an undergraduate research project when studying for my
Bachelor's degree in Biology at Wilkes College in 1975, and I also
conducted research for my Master's and my doctoral degrees [these
degrees were in Botany (M.S., 1977, Ohio University) and Biology
(Ph.D., 1981, West Virginia University)].
So, I've been interested in the ecological issues on disturbed
landscapes for a long time.
As a Ph.D. student, I realized that I didn't want an academic
career. After completing
that degree, I moved with my soon-to-be husband, Mark Walbridge, to
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he went to graduate school to
complete his Ph.D. I
spent almost a year in a job that I still believe was the worst of my
life—it was in a testing laboratory—and then I got a position at
North Carolina State University as a Program Manager.
It was a non-tenured position and I was subject to the vagaries
of the annual budget cycle at the university.
There was no guarantee of continued employment, but I was in
that job for seven years.
This
was in the 1980's and the NAPAP program—the National Acid
Precipitation Assessment Program—was starting off.
That program may be unique in the annals of government in that
it was designed as a 10-year research program that would culminate by
feeding results into the revision of the Clean Air Act in 1990. The research program got off the ground in 1981.
Using extramural funding, it was designed to look at
atmospheric processes, terrestrial effects, aquatic effects, and
assessment technology. I
landed a Program Manager at NC State, which was managing the
"effects side" of the program.
We started out with about $6 million annually, funded through
the Environmental Protection Agency and the Forest Service.
When I left that position seven years later, the terrestrial
segment of the program had grown by an order of magnitude, especially
concerning some of the issues surrounding the effect of acid
precipitation on forests and impacts on agriculture.
So,
that position gave me a solid background in science program
management. I changed
from an academic to a federal employee in that same job.
I transferred to the Forest Service and continued to manage the
program. That gave me the
opportunity to get into Forest Service Research.
I was Assistant Director of the Southeastern Experiment Station
for two years, and I managed all the agency research in Georgia and
Florida from 1989 to 1991.
WiNR: That
research unit is now part of the Southern Research Station, as two
units were combined in recent years to form the Southern Station.
Bartuska:
Yes, that's right. My
career with the Forest Service continued when I moved to Washington
D.C. in 1991. And, five
positions later, here I am! Those
positions included the first Director of Ecosystem Management in the
Washington Office, reporting to two Deputy Chiefs, which was a
fascinating situation. I
was also Forest Service liaison at the National Biological Survey in
that agency's introductory year.
I was a Special Assistant to the Director, and had some
incredible experiences in that position for a year.
After that, I came back to the Forest Service and was the
Director of Forest Health Protection, and then I moved into the Forest
and Rangelands position.
So, I had five jobs in ten years, and am very grateful for the
wide variety of professional experiences I've had.
I have made many contacts over the years that I continue to
really appreciate. When I
was working in the Department of Interior for a year [with the
National Biological Survey], we worked a lot with states and with
museums around the country, including the Smithsonian—it was a very
different job from those I have held in the Forest Service.
WiNR: You
seem to seek out opportunities that are beyond the confines of any
given job, and the broad spectrum of your interests seems to lead you
to new things.
Bartuska:
Well, I think I've been the recipient of a little bit of luck
along the way. Several
times, it's happened that a position has opened right about the time
that I'm looking, and I'm there.
But clearly one of the things that has helped me is my
predilection for collaboration with other people.
I do enjoy "crossing boundaries," and a lot of my
jobs have been of that nature. I believe that my strong ecosystem background has
helped me to be flexible. I've
worked in wetlands, ecosystem management, forest pest management, and
forest and rangelands.
One key to my flexibility, a key to my career, is my strong
liberal arts background. My undergraduate program was a biology degree at a liberal
arts university, where I was introduced to a whole lot of stuff in
lots of disciplines.
WiNR: Who
would you say has had the greatest influence on your development, both
personally and professionally?
Bartuska:
I can't pick one person! There
have been several. First
of all—and it may be a bit of a cliché, but it's true—as for many
of us, my parents really helped set the stage for me.
Both of them are professionals.
My mother is a physician who also taught.
She is an Endocrinologist who specialized in the thyroid gland. She taught, she mentored students, she had a practice, she
was on the lecture circuit—she was involved in an array of things.
She brought a strong science perspective to our household.
My
Dad was very active on his career path as an engineer working in
marketing for RCA, but he also shared a lot of the family
responsibilities. Both of
my parents made a point of putting work aside when they came home at
the end of the day, and focussed on the family.
So,
my parents set a strong foundation for me.
I trace my interest in science back to my childhood.
Then, I discovered ecology when I was an undergraduate student.
I didn't focus on it at first—I was attracted to the
biological sciences, but knew I wasn't interested in medicine.
I took some courses in animal behavior and a few other things,
and then I took an ecology course, and just went, "A ha!"
I found the thing that brought all the pieces together.
There
have been a number of important people for me along my career path.
One that stands out, though, is Lamar Beasley, my boss [Station
Director] at the Southeastern Station.
He was a mentor, and taught me a lot about how to do a
manager's job in the social sense.
He gave me a lot of room to try new things. He brought me along to Capitol Hill once a year, when we
spent a solid week knocking on every door of the congressional
delegations from our region. We
met with the members and staff, talking about our Station scientists
and the work they did. That
required that I know something about all of those many scientists, for
one thing, and something about all the Projects [scientific work
units]. I was their
"marketer" in those meetings, and a spokesperson for the
quality of their work. I
think I was already very technically grounded when I started that job,
but working in that important social environment was new to me, and so
that experience really made quite an impact on my professional
development.
WiNR: Plus,
you got a great deal of political training with that experience.
I think a lot of natural resource professionals avoid that
arena, because they aren't comfortable doing that kind of work.
Many view it as, perhaps, less ethical or less pure, than doing
work in a technical field.
Bartuska:
Yes, I agree. And
yes, it is rather unique to blend science and politics.
I've been asked many times to talk about "scientists as
advocates." In my
experiences on Capitol Hill, I learned that you don't have to lobby
for funding—you can simply speak to the value of the work to answer
a question. Identifying that question for people is key to explaining the
value of the work.
As an aside, one of the things that I've really enjoyed in
recent years is being very active in the Ecological Society of America
in public affairs. I've
helped address the issue of assisting academics to become more
effective communicators about the really great science they do, but
that nobody knows about because nobody is using it.
I focussed on this issue both as Vice President of ESA for
Public Affairs, and through a program I'm involved in called the Aldo
Leopold Leadership Program. This
program operates through Oregon State University on a grant from the
Packard Foundation. I
have worked with the program twice a year for the last three years.
We take mid-career ecologists, 20 at a time, and run them
through two one-week programs teaching them how to craft their
messages. We focus on how
to talk to the media, to Congress, to the public, even to their peers
outside of the typical setting of a scientific meeting.
We teach them all the "small things," such as
including a half-page summary that would be appropriate for the
general media with each scientific paper they publish.
If
we don't get our science into the public decision-making process, it
won't be used. Our
science won't get into that public process if people don't understand
our science. And, people
don't understand typical scientific publications!
I think these kind of programs are really, really important.
I think I'm fortunate in that I developed some communication
skills early on that have served me well, and I just keep fine-tuning
them.
WiNR: Your
husband, Mark Walbridge, is the newly appointed Chair of the Biology
Department at West Virginia University.
As a dual-career couple, how have you worked out the typical
issues? For instance, how have you worked out the issue of job
location for the two of you?
Bartuska:
Well, for us, as for many couples, we have the constant concern
over who applies for what, because of the impact on the other person.
We've been fortunate in that we've only had to move a few times
in our careers. The move
to West Virginia will be our third move.
I think the way we've worked out the issue of career moves is
that I've had some flexibility in career options.
I have been the one to follow along, but I've been able to find
great job opportunities for myself with every move.
My flexibility has enabled me to make choices that have
resulted in a really positive career path, with no downside.
We did have a bit of a conflict a few years ago, when my
husband was offered a job at George Mason University in Washington
D.C. and in the same month—actually it was the same week!—I was
offered the Assistant Director job at Southeastern Research Station,
and my job was in Asheville, North Carolina.
So, we had a commuting marriage for about two years, out of two
households; one in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and one in Arlington,
Virginia outside of Washington. And
because of that experience, I'm following my husband within three
months in this third move to West Virginia!
WiNR: What
are your plans?
Bartuska:
I was looking at different opportunities with the Forest
Service since I knew I would be moving to Morgantown, West Virginia. But, given my current grade level, the opportunities are
limited in the agency. I
learned of a position with The Nature Conservancy, though.
They were looking for an Executive Director for their brand new
Invasive Species Initiative, and a colleague asked me for some ideas
on people they could contact as potential candidates for the position.
When he first asked me, he jokingly asked if I would rather
forward my own name, but at the time I wasn't thinking along those
lines and declined. But
he recently asked me again, and I thought, well, what if I could do
that job out of Morgantown? The
Nature Conservancy (TNC) was looking to fill the position at their
headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, but when I approached them with
this idea, they said yes.
I will be telecommuting, with frequent trips to the head office
and Washington D.C. I'll also be traveling quite a bit, as the job has national
and international responsibilities.
I can't describe too much more about the job, because as the
year continues, I'll actually be helping to craft the position.
It will involve government relations work, and also introducing
invasives into the management activities of TNC. This organization has been at the forefront of work on
invasives, identifying the problems.
I'll also be helping with fundraising to support the invasive
species efforts that TNC will undertake.
So, there are some new challenges for me, but I am confident
I'm up to them.
I
was with the Forest Service for 14 years, and thought I'd continue
with the agency, possibly until retirement.
But I'll continue to visit the Forest Service often, I'm sure,
because that agency is one of the strongest partners TNC has in the
federal government, working on invasive species problems in all three
branches—the National Forest System, Research, and State and Private
Forestry.
WiNR: In
the fall of 2001, you will become President-elect of the Ecological
Society of America. Can
you tell us about this organization and some of the work you've done
with ESA?
Bartuska:
I've been a member of ESA since 1977. I was also Vice President for Public Affairs from 1996 to
1999. When I was
approached with the idea of my nomination for President of the
Society, I jumped at the chance.
I discussed it with my then-supervisor, and he was very
supportive. I was excited
to be the first Forest Service President of the Ecological Society of
America—I think that Jerry Franklin had left the agency and moved to
his position at the University of Washington when he actually assumed
the position. But
regardless of that, it is a fantastic honor to have been elected.
I
think the ESA has developed tremendously over the past decades.
When I first started with the Society, presentations that dealt
with management issues, such as with the then-current topics of acid
mine drainage and restoration techniques, were always combined into
one session at the annual meeting, usually held in the last time slot
on the last day. We were
always pigeon-holed. This
was symptomatic of the viewpoint of the Society then, and there were
many complaints that ESA was too focused on basic science and ignored
current ecological problems. But ESA has evolved and now there is a very strong applied
group within the Society. And,
I think my election as President is also evidence that ESA now has a
much more balanced approach to ecosystems sciences.
WiNR: Many
federal employees in the Senior Executive Service often find their
senior-level management jobs less fulfilling than the types of jobs
they often had in the past, say at the GS 13-14 professional level,
where they might have been in research or managing projects on the
ground. It's almost as if
there's a punishment for going up the ladder, and some get worn down
by that. You sound very
enthusiastic about almost everything that you've done, but can you
identify any professional situations where you felt really challenged
or blocked? And how did
you deal with those?
Bartuska:
I think part of the reason that I have never felt blocked is
because I haven't stayed in any one job too terribly long. I think I have probably felt the most challenged, felt the
roadblocks close by, so to speak, in my job of the last few years.
That's because of the nature of the program—managing the
timber program for the U.S. Forest Service is quite a challenge.
The sheer number of lawsuits and claims is often overwhelming,
but I especially had difficulty with being tarred with the label of
being one of the "devastators of the landscape."
But when you go out into the field and meet the professional
resource managers in the agency, you are struck again and again by how
concerned these people are about the forest resources.
They want to do the right thing, and they are doing the right
thing. So, that rhetoric
can be very wearying.
It is important for administrators to get away periodically, to get
refreshed. When I was
with the Forest Health Protection program, I had the opportunity to go
to Hawaii for a few months. I
crafted a training opportunity for myself, working with the State
Forester there on several special projects.
Until very recently, many people, especially in the federal
government, seemed to view Hawaii as almost a foreign country!
Yet, it's cheaper to fly from Washington to Hawaii, even in
mid-winter, than to Montana! When
I came back from my months in Hawaii, I was so refreshed and
rejuvenated, it made all the difference in the world in my outlook and
my professional stamina. So,
I think that kind of sabbatical would be very positive for many SES
employees in Washington. And, that need for rejuvenation shouldn't be considered a
weakness.
These last two years for me, with the pressures of dealing with
NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] documentation, appeals—the
whole process of getting a project to the ground has gotten so
incredibly cumbersome and lengthy that we are grinding people down
with no visible signs of success along the way.
I think something is fundamentally wrong. That doesn't mean I support getting around environmental
laws, but rather I think we need to reconsider the documentation
process. We have to ask,
"What's the added value of going to this next step?
Why does it take so long?"
For instance, as I recently read an EIS for a project, I got to
page 17 and re-read it five times before I surrendered.
I'm an ecologist with a Ph.D., with long years of technical
experience, and yet I could not understand what page 17 was trying to
say. And if I couldn't do
it, how could anyone expect a member of the public to understand it?
I think we have just gone over the top in terms of
documentation, and it’s a fundamental problem.
WiNR: Is
this only a problem in the Forest Service?
Bartuska:
I only have anecdotal information, but I do think that there is
a great variety of standards regarding required documentation in
different agencies, to meet environmental regulations.
It's just such an overwhelming problem—it's becoming a real
obstacle to getting anything meaningful done.
I hope that we can start to introduce some new technologies
that might help. These
include modeling, and presenting models in computer form, via CD-ROM.
Each Alternative in an EIS can be modeled and presented in a
number of ways. Being
able to visualize the results of different sets of treatments would be
a very powerful tool, and would make the entire process so much more
accessible.
WiNR: Do
you think that kind of technology would save a lot of work, in terms
of excessive documentation?
Bartuska:
Yes, I think it would contribute to a solution.
But I also think that the people in charge have to re-evaluate
the current situation, and ask, "What difference does all this
paper really make?" The
key, of course, will be to preserve the justifications so that the
preferred alternative can be upheld, when a decision is made.
Congress, through the Appeal Reform Act in the early 1990s,
created a set of steps for the Forest Service that no other federal
agency needs to apply to the NEPA process.
And, what Congress creates, Congress can dissolve!
So, I would like to see Congress repeal the Appeal Reform Act.
I think all federal agencies should have consistency with the
environmental impact statement process.
Repealing that law would not take away the public's right to
participate, it would just place it differently in the process.
So, the formula for success is management options, technology
and tools, and appeals reform.
WiNR: Because,
of course, the lawsuits and the appeals won't disappear, even if the
tons of paper do—nor should they, because they are part of a
democratic process. Is
there anything else you'd like to add to this interview?
Bartuska:
I'd just like to say that I've really had a great time over the
last 14 years! The Forest
Service has some of the best people in the world working for them.
Every time I get to go out in the field, I am so impressed by
the quality of the work I see and the enthusiasm to do the job that
employees convey. The
strength of the Forest Service is truly it's people.
Daina
Dravnieks Apple is a natural resource economist on the U.S. Forest
Service Policy Analysis staff, Washington D.C.
She has served as a strategic planner for the National Forest
System; as an Assistant Regulatory Officer in the Washington Office;
and as regional Land Use Appeals Coordinator and on the Engineering
Staff in Region 5, San Francisco.
She began her Forest Service career as an economist at the
Pacific Southwest Research Station, Berkeley.
She
is active in the Society of American Foresters and is Past Chair of
the National Capital Society of American Foresters.
She is a member of Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society and was
elected President of Phi Beta Kappa Northern California Association,
and served as National Secretary.
She is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley,
where she earned a B.Sc. in the Political Economy of Natural Resources
and an M.A. in Geography.