Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 12
The Policy Context of the White Mountain
Stewardship Contract
JESSE ABRAMS
The White Mountains region of Arizona consists of the high-elevation, forested ter-
rain roughly encompassed by the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests (fig. 12.1) and
White Mountain Apache tribal lands (the Ft. Apache Reservation). Conditions in the
ponderosa pine (
Pinus ponderosa
) forest that predominates here reflect those through-
out much of the western United States. These historically frequent-fire forests, once
characterized by open stands, an abundance of larger trees, and a rich ground cover of
grasses and forbs, are now more commonly overstocked with small-diameter pines and
lack a productive grass layer; such conditions leave them susceptible to uncharacteris-
tic, stand-replacing fires (Cooper 1960; Johnson 1994; Covington 2003). The White
Mountains region also resembles much of the western United States in that it was re-
cently the scene of divisive social and political conflict regarding public land manage-
ment, endangered species, timber harvesting, and wildlife. Conflicts took the form of
legal challenges to federal timber sales, the intervention of federal courts in manage-
ment decisions, and accusations and finger-pointing as activity in the woods ground to
a halt and local mills closed down (Nie 1998; Abrams and Burns 2007).
The communities of the White Mountains are unique, however, in the manner in
which they ultimately addressed these forest dilemmas. A catalyst for community ac-
tion was the Rodeo-Chediski Fire, which burned through nearly a half-million acres
of tribal, federal, and private lands in 2002, forcing the evacuation of more than thirty
thousand people and incinerating vast swaths of forest (Wilmes et al. 2002). On fed-
eral lands (the focus of this case study), national forest managers and local communi-
ties worked together in the wake of this devastating fire in an attempt to proactively
restore forests that had long since departed from their historic structures and func-
tions. The community looked to stewardship end-results contracting policy, a suite of
land management tools designed to meet ecological restoration and community de-
velopment objectives simultaneously, to address their particular restoration chal-
lenges. The Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests were not the first in the country to
use stewardship contracting authorities, but they were the first to apply them over
large areas (tens to hundreds of thousands of acres) and long time frames (ten years,
the maximum allowed contract length) (Sitko and Hurteau 2010). The story of this
