National Forest Week, July 13-19

Dixie National Forest, Utah.

Last week was National Forest Week, and I missed posting something to both to celebrate these wonderful public lands, and to express concern for the future.  I am a real fan of national forests, having conducted field research for many years in the White Mountains National Forest in New Hampshire and Maine, USA, and having visited at least 53 of our national forests, about 1/3 of all national forest units in the US.  There are currently 154 National Forests, and 20 National Grasslands, totally over 193 million acres (781,043 square km), or about 8% of the total area of the United States.  These forests also typically record over 170 million visitors per year, involved in various forms of outdoor recreation, and hunting and fishing.  The first chief of the Forest Service, which manages our national forests, was Gifford Pinchot, named when the Forest Service was established in 1905.  Unlike the National Park Service, which is housed in the Department of the Interior, the Forest Service is part of the Department of Agriculture, and this in part explains how these lands have been managed over the years,  "Land of Many Uses".  Gifford Pinchot was in some ways one of the first to really talk about sustainability, and the sustainable use of our national resources.
"Unless we practice conservation, those who come after us will have to pay the price of misery, degradation and failure for the progress and prosperity of our day." (G. Pinchot)
Pinchot believed that we must manage our forest in such a way to insure, "... the greatest good to the greatest number of people for the longest time."  This is sustainability.
Unfortunately, some suggest (including me), that this mantra has been lost, and that our national forests are not just lands of many uses, but also of many abuses.  While logging has always been practiced in our national forests, today there is also mining, oil extraction, grazing, and  hydrofracking.  And with climate change, increased risk of wild fires in some forests, the introduction of invasive exotic species, mis-management, lack of adequate monitoring, antiquated infrastructure, and other threats, our national forests are at risk.  These issues are being made much worse by the current administration in Washington, DC, and on 12 June 2020, Sonny Purdue, Secretary of the Department of Agriculture issued a secretarial memorandum to the Chief of the Forest Service which opened the door, wide open, to further abuses due to increases in resource extraction from our national forests without any regard for recreational uses, forest ecosystem health, and biodiversity.  "This is a roadmap to national forest destruction and it's painful to read." (Randi Spivak, Director of the Center for Biological Diversity's public lands program).  The continued assault on our public lands by the current administration is nothing short of criminal.  These are public lands, owned by all of us, and yet all they seem to care about are the loggers, frackers, miners and ranchers.  This is yet another sad day for the US, for habitats and ecosystems, for species throughout the US.  I love our national forests, I have camped, hiked and biked in so many I can't name them all, from Allegheny NF in Pennsylvania, to Pisgah, Nantahala, Uwharrie, and Croatan in North Carolina, south to Talladega NF in Alabama and Appalachicola NF in Florida, north to the UP of Michigan and Superior NF in Minnesota (home to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness), and west to the many national forest in Colorado (Arapaho and Roosevelt, Pike, Rio Grande, Gunnison, Uncompahgre, Routt NFs), South Dakota (Black Hills NF), Montana (Lewis and Clark, Bitterroot, Custer-Gallatan and Lolo NFs), Utah (Dixie and Manti-La Sal NFs), Wyoming (Bridger-Teton and Shoshone NFs), Idaho (Kooteni NF), Arizona (Kaibab NF), Oregon (Rogue River - Siskiyou NF), New Mexico (Cibola and Santa Fe NFs), California (Sequoia NF), and even Alaska (Chugach NF).  But again, these special places are under threat, from our own government.  All of our public lands are under threat, and especially our national forests, from activities which threaten the often unique nature of these wild lands, forest lands which support an incredible amount of plant and animal diversity, a diversity of habitats including many streams and rivers, and which house physical landscapes which can often take your breath away.  Without public land, there is no outdoor recreation, there is no outdoor adventure. Please do what you can to really celebrate National Forest Week, and work hard to protect these valuable, public resources.  So much to explore, experience, and enjoy.

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