Reducing fuels and advancing equity: Incorporating environmental justice into hazardous fuels management

Abstract

In 1994, an executive order on environmental justice directed federal agencies to identify and address any disproportionately high adverse effects their actions and policies may have on the health and environment of minority and low-income populations.Until recently, a suitable procedure did not exist for assessing natural resource management activities through the lens of environmental justice at the implementation scale. Researchers Mark Adams and Susan Charnley with the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station developed an analytical method to do this. The method facilitates analysis of the relationship between past forest management activities and the locations of minority and low-income communities. Land managers can then incorporate the findings when scoping locations for future projects.The researchers used this method to assess the distribution of benefits to local populations created by 10 years of fuels management on 12 national forests in the Western United States. They found that, for the most part, the 12 national forests equitably distributed benefits from fuels reduction projects. However, each forest had one or more “hotspots” where a localized lack of benefit for concentrated racial or ethnic minority populations raised environmental justice concerns. Interviews with Forest Service managers provided insight into why hotspots occurred and revealed how environmental justice could be more effectively integrated into land management procedures.

Citation

McDaniel, Josh; Adams, Mark D. O.;Charnley, Susan. 2021. Reducing fuels and advancing equity: Incorporating environmental justice into hazardous fuels management. Science Findings 243. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 5 p.