Throughout the U.S. over the past 20 years there has been a massive planning effort underway within all forests of the U.S. Forest Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There have been notable successes and excellent plans as well as some failures. This planning effort has many messages for rural communities. Because of this relevance, the following commentary is included on how Guidance attempts to respond to challenges outlined in a 1990 USFS document evaluating the planning process. In effect, this is a document about planning for planning.

In Synthesis of the Critique of Land Management Planning (Volume 1, USDA Forest Service, Policy Analysis Staff (FS-452) June, 1990, 24 pages) there were experiences, lessons learned, and future challenges. Guidance staff has studied the document as well as 10 other "Critique Reports", e.g., Baltic et al. (1989). We are particularly pleased to have been provided these insights into how to meet future challenges.

Can ... "national forests continue to be everything to everyone at the level they demand? This question should be the cornerstone of every forest plan" [our emphasis; consider the consequence of substituting the name of any land area under management throughout this summary] (p. 18).

Guidance requests objectives, states what amounts can be achieved on the area, then in text material presents optional sources about where and the means by which the objectives can be achieved. In a positive, forthright way, it presents its limitations and capacities given likely budgets of energy and money. Capacities are never really known (cf. you can grow bananas on a chestnut-oak ridge with enough money for a greenhouse) but current limits can be stated. Ideas for new capabilities may remain a public challenge.

Area-proportional data will be presented. (What is available on the area as compared to other areas?)

"Nearness-to" data will be presented (people living within what access radius)

Three policy concepts will be explored by simulation:

1. What if all (100%) of the local demand (by people of all of the counties in which the area occurs) was attempted to be met? What would be the success or failure rates?
2. Half (50% or more)?
3. A proportion, P, where P = ownership/total county area?

Two investment (budgets available) scenarios will be presented, thus, providing a readable, simple 2x3 table. The table can be used for comparisons and education attempting to bring citizen benefits in line with their expectations.

Challenge: Shorten the Time It Takes to Complete a Plan

Guidance is a dynamic planning system. The plan text can be produced at anytime. The plan is the dynamically changing computer system. It will be undergoing change and improvement , not only for planning but for many roles.

Guidance is a prototype so all similar areas can have an approved planning system with massive components of conventional plans already in files, edited, and readily modified to fit local conditions. Standard equations and algorithms can be used (or replaced if local data or equivalent operators are available).

The planning system may have milestone dates but it is a continually improving and growing system so there is never the notion that "the plan is completed."

Challenge: Conduct Planning in Smaller Increments

Consistent with the above, Guidance (1) seeks inputs and advice on specific "chapters" or "paragraphs" from various people and groups in prescribed formats (flexibility is assured, but often citizens have difficulty in deciding on how (in what form) to make inputs. They are often flexible. We reduce (but not eliminate) the square pegs for round holes. Because of the many sections and many publics, these reviews and inputs do not have to be tightly scheduled. Some sections may be nearly permanent, others changing every 6 months.

There are no final, permanent answers.

Challenge: Clearly Articulate Resource Capabilities and Limitations

See the "Cornerstone" comment above directed to forest area capabilities. This challenge addresses the limitations of Guidance itself and associated staff. A limitations statement will be made. The education group will list "reducing complaints about limitations" and "reducing excessive requests" as behavior modifications to be achieved.

One consequence of "modeling" will be to identify the knowledge gaps and factors to which the system is most sensitive. A "Research and Study Needs" chapter has been created within the system but it will also be available as a separate document to universities, and others. Often the need is for help in finding existing knowledge.

Challenge: Find Ways to Balance Local, Regional, and National Priorities

We shall have in the stored text the major relevant laws, regulations, and policies. As part of the incremental process, small local groups will be called together to work on planning segments. Knowledge of the total system and key connection points will allow specific questions to be formulated, discussions focused, limitations stated, and local conditions included in the system.

National priorities will be interpreted in brief statements. Usually laws, regulations, and policies can be interpreted as Type-5 objectives (Types of Objectives will be presented in that unit) and are used as constraints within the mathematical formulations. "Forest plans are local plans..." (p. 19) and Guidance addresses the area and the local citizens, one group among those who list objectives, assign them values, and indicate limitations on how they wish them achieved.

Challenge: Build Effective Human Relations

Difficult at best, nearly impossible for an Agency, stressed by frequent staff turnovers, antagonized by "the impersonal computer", this is a real challenge. Guidance addresses it by

1. Assigning authorship to ideas and comments (if desired)
2. Addressing individuals for help
3. Developing ad hoc, short-term taskforces
4. Education section work with pictures of participants for news releases
5. Education section work with TV
6. New series of field trips
7. "Adjacent-landowner" newsletter
8. County and Planning District leadership education sessions
9. Professional group education sessions (e.g., landscape architect, private recreational facility owners)
10. Publicity media, contact areas, and contact phone
11. Programs for citizen groups
12. An Guidance computer game for youth to play
13. A balance of request for public "help" with rewards of some type (a) clear use, (b) acknowledgement, (c) and minor benefits (field trips, newsletter, etc.).

Challenge: Be Sensitive to People's Emotions

An analytical procedure will be developed.

We shall see if "an individual" is isolated or representative. "Relative weights of importance" in computing R values can be revised as can expected values. Explanation may help (e.g., in changing an expected value). Alternatives include the potential to address some emotional issues by separating users of areas, "hiding" certain users or uses, separating users in time, etc.

Minor changes in responses by staff, both personal and written, need to be made. A $100 personal visit may equate to a $100,000 law suit saving.

We shall seek inputs on strategies from university and experienced personnel.

We need to encourage extended, publicized, efforts at compromise before decisions.

Challenge: Achieve Integrated Interdisciplinary Resource Management

Guidance itself is the best currently available concept to "depict a desired future condition for the area as a whole" (p. 20). It allows the best knowledge and data on individual resources (not upsetting single-resource staff lines) to be unified ecologically, economically, energetically, and esthetically.

Guidance works on subunits of the area as well as for planning so daily proposed actions on the area(prescription, etc.) can be tested against the system land. Changes can be tallied to change the expression of the current state of the system.

Challenge: Integrate Programming, Budgeting, and Appropriations

Current budgetary processes typically allocate money to each resource area separately, rather than as an integrated whole. Guidance may later be used as a model to compare the consequences of two or more different budgeting strategies. The search should be for "a way that encourages rather than inhibits interdisciplinary integrated management." Guidance allows and encourages such a search to continue along alternative paths.

Challenge: Effectively Deal with Multi-faceted Issues

The proposed system unifies the resources of the area. An elaborate Feedforward Subsystem (see elsewhere in the system) is described to provide "... integrated responses to issues that have simultaneous effects in many resource areas."

Challenge: Fuel Forest Plans with the Dollars They Require

Resource plans without budget plans to manage or use the resource s appear silly. The alternative budgetary conditions suggested under Objectives addresses the options but does not address "desired budgets" or "annual needs." Budgets can be devised and presented in infinite configuration. Guidance presents only minimum budgetary information but expresses costs of achieving expressed, desired benefits. Failure to gain the financial resources or staff to control the system can result in small or erratic change in R, the performance measure for the area as a system.

Challenge: Keep Plans Current

The dynamic nature of Guidance, as already described, meets this challenge.

Two profound limitations and failures not noted above are in:

1. The Planning Horizon - In managing forests, orchards, water impoundments -- almost all natural resource investments for the public -- a distant planning horizon is needed. Distant horizons are difficult to handle because of people's attitudes toward risk, because of classical financial discounting, and because of the operational uncertainties over such a period. Guidance presents classical analyses for a 50-year period, but also presents a few alternatives or consequences if a 100-year period is used with new algorithms now advanced in ecological economics.

2. The Scale of Analyses - The area itself is a big enough problem for analysis, but it is rarely isolated. A plan for an area must include thought about the future budgets, sources of water and its quality, shifting recreation use, even global warming -- all off-area related phenomena. Guidance includes a reasonable area around the boundary. A protocol for determining a minimum reasonable area is currently being developed.