A curious article in the New York Times says the Forest Service has a “new plan to manage the national forest system.” This new plan, says the Times, is 97 pages long (actually only 94) and has environmentalists upset because it no longer requires the agency to protect minimum viable populations of wildlife.
In reality, there is no new plan, but merely new rules for writing forest plans. As the Antiplanner has noted before, forest planning is a huge drag on the Forest Service that consumes enormous resources and produces nothing of value.
Since the law requires some form of planning, last year faithful Antiplanner ally Andy Stahl proposed “Keep It Simple Stupid” planning that met the absolute minimum requirements of the law but imposed no other obligations on the agency. Stahl pointed out that the only real requirement in the law was that forests should list the timber sales they plan, so he suggested that that’s all that the rules should require.
