After a Century

After a Century: National Forest Management in the Intermountain Region at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century

BY THOMAS G. ALEXANDER

At the turn of the twenty-first century, slightly over a century had passed since enactment of the Forest Service Organic Act in 1897. Before 1897, General Land Office (GLO) special agents had made some investigations of illegal grazing and logging on the western states’ public lands. 1 After the Organic Act’s passage, supervisors and rangers of the GLO’s Forestry Division administered what were then called forest reserves, previously established under the General Revision Act of 1891. Most activities on forest reserves consisted of logging and grazing. In 1905, Congress transferred the forest reserves from the General Land Office to the U.S. Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture. Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot renamed the reserves as national forests and combined them into nine regions, with the Intermountain Region (Region 4) encompassing forest areas in Utah, Nevada, Idaho (south of the Salmon River), Wyoming (west of the Continental Divide), and small chunks of western Colorado and eastern California.

Between passage of the Organic Act and the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act in 1960, the foresters of Region 4 worked with some success to improve the condition of the lands under their stewardship. The major problems they encountered resulted from overgrazing sheep and cattle and an extensive increase of the timber cut during the 1950s. After the passage of the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act, Forest Service employees often called their tasks “functionalism”—the management of various “functions” such as timber, grazing, watershed, wildlife, and recreation to maintain and improve the land conditions. 2 Compared to earlier foresters, Forest Service managers in the last half of the twentieth century were increasingly faced with diverse, competing interests vying for position among national forest user groups.

Public disagreement over the ways the Forest Service has managed and should manage the lands under its stewardship has created difficulty for foresters. Often the disagreement is portrayed in terms of opposition between competing priorities or ideologies— commodity versus amenity interests, or development versus preservation—but such a portrayal oversimplifies the various points of view. Probably no rancher wants to herd cattle or sheep on overgrazed rangelands. Virtually no logger wants to cut trees on eroded slopes, and neither the rancher nor logger wants to see rivers plagued with silted spawning grounds. Instead, loggers, ranchers, and their supporters tend to divide into those who favor ecological management, and those whose principal concern is how they can make a living from fattening livestock or cutting trees. I would suggest that in many cases, the success of the Forest Service in dealing with such controversies depends as much on the public interests as on management of forest resources. That is, positions taken by substantial portions of the public or influential people can affect forest management decisions.

Like those who want to work the land, not all environmentalists share similar goals or methods to achieve them. Some propose eliminating all livestock, mining, and logging from the national forests. Some oppose salvage sales, and others lobby against the use of prescribed burning as a management tool. Some believe that by opposition to one of more of these management tools they can restore landscapes and wildlife to a pristine, prehuman contact condition. By contrast, other environmentalists favor commercial activities in suitable places. Those forest users who engage in tourism and recreation often divide into those who favor low-impact activities such as backpacking or fishing and those who prefer to ride off-highway vehicles, snowmobiles, or engage in commercial skiing. Some environmentalists are firmly against the payment of market-based fees for the use of amenities. Others believe that such fees are necessary to protect and maintain national forest amenities.

The officers of Region 4 have of necessity addressed such points of view during the region’s entire existence. At no time have they faced and coped with such diverse points of view more than during the 1980s and 1990s as they drafted new forest plans. During these years, supervisors and rangers met these challenges under the leadership of the regional foresters Stan Tixier (1982– 91), Gray Reynolds (1991–94), Dale Bosworth (1994–97), and Jack Blackwell (1997–2001). In drafting the plans, foresters reenvisioned their work in the context of the forest ecosystem rather than separate multiple uses. Fortunately, in drafting the plans, the regional office, forest supervisors, and district rangers had the assistance of biologists, ecologists, archaeologists, agronomists, range specialists, watershed specialists, and other experts on staff.

The foresters were fortunate to have such specialists since they had to cope with some problems that were either different or of greater consequence from their predecessors. For instance, because of the increase in predatory and feral animals protected and, in some cases, reintroduced under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, foresters had to plan for problems of increased and often violent confrontation and competition among predators, grazing wildlife such as elk and feral horses, and domestic animals on grazing allotments. With the use of trenching and reduction of animals in allotments, the region generally eliminated the rock-mud floods that had plagued the forests during the 1920s and 30s. By contrast, the major remaining unsolved watershed problems ranged from wet-mantle and frozen-mantle floods (that is, floods occurring on water-soaked or frozen ground, as occurred during the winter and spring of 1983), to livestock overgrazing in riparian areas.

With passage of the Organic Act of 1897, Congress hoped to restore forests from previous and ongoing indiscriminate overgrazing, logging, fires, and floods. Between 1950 and 1970, forest supervisors and rangers appointed under regional foresters Chet Olsen (1950–57) and Floyd Iverson (1957–70) accomplished mixed results as they struggled to improve the forest conditions. Forest rangers worked with ranchers to reduce the number of sheep and cattle in grazing allotments. To aid in determining the optimum land condition, range managers adopted techniques such as transects (measured distances over which they could inspect changes in the land and its plants) and exclosures (areas in which no grazing was allowed) as they tried to restore the plants that would be browsed by livestock. 3

During the 1950s, however, the Congress and Forest Service staff in Washington, D.C. pushed the region to increase logging. Unfortunately, the result was logging roads constructed to a minimal standard, many following watercourses into dense stands of old growth. The pounding of logging trucks often dislodged dirt and debris from the roads, damaging the rivers and fish living in them. 4 From the 1970s to the early 1990s, under regional foresters Vern Hamre (1970–80), Jeff Sermon (1980–82), and especially Stan Tixier the region began to solve some of the problems of timber management. During the period, the region proved that it could regrow timber stands. Foresters, however, encountered increased pressure both from wise use advocates who lobbied to increase logging and from environmentalists who proposed to reduce or even eliminate logging and grazing in the interest of recreation, wildlife, and environmental restoration.

Fence through pinon-juniper cover on public land delineating a controlled grazing area (on the left) near Price, Utah. The photograph was taken in 1939; since 1935, goats had grazed only the area outside the fence (on the right). Photo by U.S. Soil Conservation Service. Utah State Historical Society, photo no. 3378.

Increasingly, supervisors and rangers addressing these challenges relied on technical experts in planning and executing forest plans in ecosystem restoration. Considering the employment of such experts, Christopher K. Lehman in a 1981 study examined how the forest ranger had morphed from the lone official in a forest district to a line officer supervising a staff of specialists. 5 Instead of reducing the ranger’s tasks, however, the employment of such specialists increased the scope of knowledge rangers had to master. This meant that rangers now had an increasingly complex mix of responsibilities and technical knowledge required to manage such resources as watersheds, wilderness, timber, recreation, wildlife, range, special uses, law enforcement, and mining. 6

Contrary to public perceptions, cattle, rather than sheep, cause the major overgrazing and soil damage in riparian areas. Unlike the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when sheep and cattle tended to range free on public lands and forests, by the mid-twentieth century the Forest Service required ranchers to control sheep by herding them in allotments where Forest Service personnel measured the condition of the land and plants. Within their assigned allotments, however, cattle generally ranged freely. If their movements are not controlled, both cattle and other wildlife tend to graze near water sources. The Forest Service required ranchers to mitigate damage caused by cattle in riparian areas by establishing water troughs and salt licks away from streams and by moving the animals from section to section within the allotments.

As Forest Service employees worked to eliminate environmental damage, their perceptions of their duties began to change. Before the late 1970s, most foresters said they managed the traditional functions codified in the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act (1960). Although foresters measured success by the condition of the land—especially watersheds—and they spoke of multiple use, they tended to view logging, grazing, recreation, watershed, wilderness, and wildlife as separate but interrelated activities.

However, as employees prepared the forest plans during the late 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s, they recognized that these functions were not only interrelated, but actually bore an inseparable kinship to each other. If, for instance, grazing changed the condition of the land, it also affected other aspects of the ecosystem such as flora, fauna, and watershed health. With this recognition, many foresters began to speak of managing ecosystems rather than managing functions. In assessing this change, Dixie National Forest supervisor Hugh Thompson called ecosystem management “the next plateau above multiple use management.” 7

The national office under chief foresters Dale Robertson (1987–1993), Jack Ward Thomas (1993–1996), and Michael Dombeck (1997–2001) also used the term ecosystem management. Dombeck said that he would hold each forest supervisor “accountable for key areas such as streamside condition and health, water quality, watershed health, noxious weed management, and endangered species habitat management and protection.” 8

In some ways, conditions in central management during the nineties were unusual. Thomas had no national forest line experience and Dombeck earned a bachelor’s and doctorate in zoology rather than forestry or range management like virtually all his predecessors. In addition, in an unusual change reminiscent of Theodore Roosevelt, President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore involved themselves in ecosystem management in controversies over the northern spotted owl and salvage sales of fire and insect damaged trees. 9

As they drafted and implemented the new plans to promote ecosystem management in the late 1980s and 1990s, some foresters reenvisioned their roles. In 1993, Nevada’s Toiyabe National Forest Supervisor R. M. (Jim) Nelson said that officers should perceive forest users as tools for meeting “ecological objectives” rather than as customers or as stakeholders. Rather than viewing cows as producers of red meat, foresters should consider them as one of the components of the ecosystem that included deer, elk, birds, plants, recreationists, and loggers. If any of these components did not contribute to managing healthy ecosystems, foresters had an obligation to find a way to fit them in. Forests, he said, must develop “healthy, sustainable, and diverse ecosystems for public benefit and use.” Nelson reorganized the line and staff officers into teams of ecological unit coordinators that included the forest supervisor and deputy supervisors. These teams provided services for the ranger districts in planning and implementing forest plans. 10

Although the national forests had been established by statute to manage timber and watersheds, by the early 1990s recreation had become the “largest single program component in the region’s budget.” 11 As George Olsen, former regional director of lands and recreation recognized, the public told forest planners that they wanted greater outdoor recreation and environmental values and experiences. 12 In addition to dispersing through the national forests, recreationists patronized special permit areas such as ski areas and summer homes. In 1996, for instance, the service received more than $10 billion in revenue from ski areas. 13

Unfortunately, recreation and other functions took their toll on forest lands and facilities just as grazing and logging did. By mid-1997, the Forest Service was saddled with a $1 billion maintenance backlog. 14 Congress could have appropriated some funds for repair from the $900 million in the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Instead, legislators took 78 percent for deficit reduction and other programs, leaving only about $200 million for programs on the public lands. 15 Although to address this deficiency Congress implemented a user fee collection system for recreational activities in 1996, users paid only an average of five cents per visit, which generated far too little revenue to cover the cost of eliminating the maintenance backlog. 16 Such fees were not equivalent to those charged at private campgrounds that provided a comparable recreational experience. Moreover, beyond such minimal fees, recreational enthusiasts paid the public treasury nothing except taxes for their adventures. Although state fish and game departments charge for the privilege of hunting and fishing, the Forest Service receives no fees for managing or improving wildlife habitat. Owners of summer homes pay special-use fees, but political pressure has kept these well below the market value of the national forest lands their buildings occupy.

In addition to paying minimal fees, recreationists carried most of the blame for the facilities’ deterioration. Unfortunately, recreationists tended to believe that, in contrast with logging, ranching, and mining, their activities caused little or no damage to forest ecosystems. Attacking this view in a letter to the High Country News, Richard L. Knight, a professor of wildlife conservation at Colorado State University, pointed out that a “recent survey in BioScience found that outdoor recreation was the second largest cause (after dams) for the decline of endangered and threatened species.” Knight listed skiers, snowboarders, kayakers, rafters, climbers, bikers, and hunters as examples. Recreationists were, he pointed out, “more numerous than chainsaws . . . [and] more intelligent than cows.” 17 Critics have also cited the damage caused by off-road vehicles. 18

Resort and backcountry skiing are popular recreational and economic activities on national forest lands. This image from February 1972 shows the ski patrol practicing avalanche search techniques at Alta, Utah. Credit of Wasatch National Forest. Utah State Historical Society, photo no. 3657.

Region 4’s national forests faced considerable difficulty solving problems caused by recreation, but they also encountered problems with timber management. Although the Intermountain Region made some significant progress in managing timber harvests, it failed to achieve successful ecosystem management in this field. Problems resulted principally by the change in

the composition of the forests and by pressure to inhibit the Forest Service’s efforts to correct the problems caused by density and natural disasters. By the twenty-first century, significant problems included the large numbers of overaged and overdense fir, the replacement of relatively drought resistant pine by fire-susceptible firs and Douglas firs, misunderstanding of prescribed fires, and resistance to all logging in national forests. Added to these were controversies over below-cost timber sales, logging in roadless areas, and salvage sales. 19

Despite the difficulties, Region 4 has had some success in timber management. Employees have cooperated with the timber industry in inaugurating methods such as helicopter logging that mitigate watershed damage. Moreover, the region has demonstrated that it can regrow trees in logged and burned areas, in part because of consideration of the entire ecosystem, in part because of more successful planting techniques, and in part because of the less-destructive logging methods used. Ecosystem management also led to the recovery of forests from the excessively careless road building of the 1950s. Thus, by 2000, downstream dams rather than logging posed the principal barrier to the return of anadromous fish.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the forests drafted new plans to incorporate various functions into coordinated ecosystem management. The region’s most serious challenges occurred in drafting the plan for Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest. The largest in area of any national forest in the lower forty-eight states, Bridger-Teton’s three million acres shared northwestern Wyoming with other forests and with Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. Nearly 85 percent of the people in Jackson, Wyoming, the largest population center near the forest, earned their living from tourism. Since most tourists came to the area for a forest experience in what they erroneously perceived as pristine wilderness, residents and visitors opposed cutting large blocks of trees.

Forest Service officials in Washington told Bridger-Teton supervisor Brian Stout that his was “probably one of the most contentious forest plans to put together in the country.” 20 Controversy erupted over the role that minimum management requirements—the heart of ecosystem management—should play in determining timber harvest levels. To try to hold the allowable sale quantities (ASQ) at a relatively high level, development-oriented wise use groups including the Wind River Multiple Use Advocates and Louisiana Pacific Corporation took the Forest Service to court. Stout spent two days on the stand testifying in the case. Rejecting the plaintiff’s arguments, in a “precedent-setting” decision, the judge ruled that “timber harvest levels were discretionary with the Secretary of Agriculture.” On advice of the Forest Service’s general counsel, Stout had the judge establish a legal precedent by publishing the decision. 21

The decision in the Wind River Multiple Use case allowed the Bridger-Teton and other national forests to set timber sale levels according to the impact on the ecosystem and thus “on very careful analysis of other resource impacts.” 22 The Bridger-Teton was the first in the country to plan by using “reasonable development scenarios,” and the staff did so by organizing a blue ribbon committee consisting of representatives of various interests from the public and state, local, and federal agencies. The committee studied the geologic, developmental, and economic impact of various levels of leasing on the seven counties connected to the forest.

In spite of these efforts, the Bridger-Teton received approximately twenty thousand different comments from throughout the United States, foreign countries, and Wyoming communities. 23 Groups and individuals lodged nine appeals to the plan. Negotiation led to the withdrawal of all appeals, and the Forest Service approved the plan in June 1990. 24

Stout believed that the agency avoided appeals and litigation because of the emphasis on “very extensive open public involvement.” 25 Stout got “the public involved up front” by considering site-specific land management objectives “rather than trying to debate [abstractly] the pros and cons of various tools and techniques.” He knew that no one could really answer such abstract questions as “whether clear-cutting is good or . . . bad . . . unless you know what the land management objective [for the ecosystem] is.” 26

In both drafting and implementing the plan, Stout viewed forest users as owners. Instead of holding public hearings with owners, Stout “involved people” in “open workshops.” That technique avoided public hearings in which experience showed that those who testified tended to lock themselves into inflexible contradictory abstract views such as opposing all clear cuts, demanding maximum commodity production, or sticking to positions that ignored constraints imposed by law and regulations. 27 In the workshops, Stout and his staff took “permittees and interested public” into the forests to observe as forest officers did “actual on-the-ground monitoring.” 28 This method allowed users to see how and why the forest adopted various procedures in the interest of healthy ecosystem management.

After the favorable decision in the Wind River Multiple Use case, the Bridger-Teton’s ASQ declined dramatically as foresters planned for healthy ecosystems. In the early 1990s the ASQ averaged a relatively modest 5 mmbf (million board feet of timber). By contrast, during the 1970s the ASQ on the Bridger-Teton had averaged about 35 mmbf. 29

The reasons for the decline in ASQ are not hard to determine. Because of various recreational and ecological considerations, the planners classified fewer than three hundred thousand of the forest’s 3.3 million acres for timber production. Moreover, of the three hundred thousand acres, the forest had zoned two hundred thousand, or two-thirds, as wildlife-timber priority, which meant that the staff had to give the welfare of wildlife primary consideration in planning timber sales. Thus, the Bridger-Teton considered timber production the primary activity on only one hundred thousand acres—about 3 percent of the forest. 30

Although through open workshops Stout solved problems in ecosystem management, Bridger-Teton and other national forests continue to encounter criticism and lobbying from an increasingly large number of conflicting interest groups—groups often cast in the simplistic dichotomy of commodity versus amenity interests, or developmentalists versus environmentalists. Moreover, forest managers often have to contend with those who fail to understand that national forests belong to all the people of the United States, and are regulated by Congress under Article IV Section 3 of the Constitution. 31 Others seem unwilling to recognize that people who live near the national forests have a particular interest in their management because their livelihoods and lifestyles are intimately tied to the forests and because of the damage misuse can cause to their homes and property. 32

Some critics fail to recognize that some commodity interests do pay something for the use of public resources. Except in some salvage sales, sale of national forest timber is set by the market at auction to the highest bidder. Miners extracting leasable minerals such as coal and asphalt pay royalties to the federal government, and ski areas pay a percentage of their income to the national treasury for operating on the national forests. Still, because of the 1872 mining act, hard rock miners pay nothing to the federal government for the extraction from public lands of locatable minerals such as gold, silver, and copper. Nevertheless, fees such as those for summer homes established by other-than-market mechanisms illustrate a basic problem in public resource management—their essentially political component. A similar condition has existed in political conflicts, such as the efforts to transfer the forests either to the states or private interests.

At the root of problems caused by conflict between various groups is the tendency for commodity and amenity interests that often exert political pressure to seek goods and services at lower than market rates. Economists call the application of political pressure to secure below-market charges “rent seeking.” Some economists like Delworth Gardner have considered “the . . . situation untenable.” Those with only a slight stake in the outcome of political decisions practice what political scientists call “rational ignorance.” That is, they remain relatively uninformed because the issues affect them only marginally. Gardner suggested in view of this rent seeking “a strong case can be made for privatizing the bulk of” nationally owned lands. He recognized, however, that this alternative is politically unlikely because of the interests involved and the problems of transition to private ownership are not adequately understood. 33

The Bridger-Teton case has suggested that in the hands of skillful forest officers, public involvement in planning meetings allows discussion by a far wider range of people than open houses or hearings. In retrospect it seems evident that Brian Stout had taken a page from the practice of regional foresters Chet Olsen, Floyd Iverson, Vern Hamre, and Stan Tixier, who arranged forest trips with key individuals from commodity and environmental groups to inform them of forest needs in planning. 34

Clearly, however, such participatory democracy is extremely expensive. One Forest Service economist estimated in the early 1980s that 30 percent of the budget went into “planning-like functions.” 35 Significantly, studies made during the late 1980s concluded that such planning may actually cost more than the value of the resources the planning intends to manage. 36 Moreover, the divisions between user groups seem to have intensified rather than diminished over time. It is almost impossible to read a daily newspaper over any length of time and not see evidence of appeals taken from some action of the Forest Service. In most cases, they are lodged by environmental groups that insist that the Forest Service has failed to conduct an adequate environmental assessment or that they oppose resource extraction in the interest of preserving the ecosystem for recreational activities or to preserve the existing ecosystem instead of altering it.

The Intermountain Region has been in existence now for more than a century. The problems it faced in the past undoubtedly seemed as difficult to its managers then as those it faces now seem to the present administrators. The demands by various interests might never before have been so complex, but solutions were always hard to achieve. At the turn of the millennium, the leadership of the region recognized its challenges and set about trying to respond to them. The degree of success seems to have depended as much on the management of public relations as upon ecological management of national forest lands.

Notes

Thomas G. Alexander is the Lemuel Hardison Redd Jr. Professor Emeritus of Western American History at Brigham Young University. Over the years I have worked on Region 4’s history I have benefitted from the help and critiques of Stan Tixier, Hardy Redd, Dick Kline, Jack Lavin, John Burns, Sue Van Allen, and the late Bill Smart and Gibbs Smith. Conversations with Stephen Pyne, Don Worster, Bill Robins, and the late Sam Hays were insightful. I appreciate the interviews conducted by David Wilson, Andrea Radke- Moss, and Sondra Jones, and Jessie Embry’s assistance in processing the interviews. Thanks to Brigham Young University’s College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences for financial assistance.

1 See Commissioner of the General Land Office to Secretary of the Interior, from 1896 and 1897, Interior Department, Lands and Railroads Division, Letters Received, RG 48, National Archives, Washington, DC.

2 Brian Stout, interview by Andrea Radke-Moss, October 27, 1993, 9–10, U.S. Forest Service Oral History Project, Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, Brigham Young University, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University (hereafter FS Oral History Project).

3 On Region

4 administration under Olsen and Iverson, see Thomas G. Alexander, The Rise of Multiple-Use Management in the Intermountain West: A History of Region 4 of the Forest Service (Washington, DC: USDA Forest Service, 1987), 157–86. 4 Alexander, 169–73.

5 Herbert Kaufman, The Forest Ranger: A Study in Administrative Behavior (repr.; Washington, DC: Resources for the Future, 2006); Christopher K. Leman, “The Forest Ranger Revisited: Administrative Behavior in the U.S. Forest Service in the 1980’s” (paper, American Political Science Association, New York City, September 3–6, 1981), 7, copy in possession of Carl Pence, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Jackson, Wyoming.

6 Leman, “The Forest Ranger Revisited,” 9.

7 Hugh C. Thompson, interview by Sondra Jones, November 23, 1993, 13, FS Oral History Project.

8 High Country News, January 20, 1997.

9 R. M. “Jim” Nelson, interview by Sondra Jones, Sparks, Nevada, December 7, 1993, 13, 23, FS Oral History Project.

10 Nelson, interview, 21–22.

11 George Olsen, interview by David Wilson, Ogden, Utah, November 12, 1992, 9, FS Oral History Project.

12 Olsen, interview, 8.

13 Salt Lake Tribune, December 4, 1997.

14 High Country News, October 13, 1997.

15 High Country News, December 9, 1996; and Stan Tixier, review of a manuscript for a revised version of the Region 4 history.

16 High Country News, October 13, 1997; Public Law 104-134 (as amended 16 U.S.C. 4601–6a), as cited in https://www .fs.fed.us/recreation/programs/feedemo/projects 02/content2002.html (accessed September 23, 2019). Congress extended the law with Public Law 106-291.

17 Richard L. Knight, letter to the editor, High Country News, January 18, 1998.

18 H. Michael Anderson, “Reshaping National Forest Policy,” Issues in Science and Technology 16, no. 1 (Fall 1999), available at https://issues.org/anderson/ (accessed September 24, 2019).

19 In December 1998, Friends of the Earth, Forest Guardians, and other environmental groups sued the Forest Service to stop all logging on the ground that federal law requires the agency to consider the economic and social benefits of leaving a standing forest before making a decision to cut any trees. Salt Lake Tribune, December 18, 1998.

20 Brian Stout, interview by Andrea Radke, October 27, 1993, 1, FS Oral History Project.

21 Stout, interview.

22 Stout, interview, 2

23 Stout, interview, 3.

24 Stout, interview, 4.

25 Stout, interview, 3–4.

26 Stout, interview, 5.

27 Based on review of the manuscript by Stan Tixier.

28 Stout, interview, 6.

29 Fred A. Kingwell, interview by Sondra Jones, October 23, 1993, 14, FS Oral History Project.

30 Joe E. Ragsdale, interview by David Wilson, October 29, 1992, 10, FS Oral History Project. These figures differ from those in the forest plan, apparently because the plan’s estimates were based on FORPLAN analysis, a computer program that lacked the site-specific project analysis to calculate deviations. See Bridger-Teton, Land and Resource Management Plan, A6, copy at Bridger- Teton National Forest Office, Jackson, Wyoming.

31 On this issue, I would suggest that readers would do well to read the discussion of the proposed Craig Bill in Journal of Forestry 96 (September 1998), especially Bill Imbergamo, “A Start on the Long Road to Reform,” 11–14, and Bob Bierer, “A Voice for the Stakeholders,” 21–23.

32 See William H. Meadows, “Turning Back the Clock,” Journal of Forestry 96 (September 1998): 15–17.

33 B. Delworth Gardner, “The Political Economy of Public Land Use,” Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 22 (1997): 12, 23–24.

34 Supplied by Stan Tixier on review of a manuscript for a revised version of the Region 4 history.

35 Kaufman, The Forest Ranger; Leman, “The Forest Ranger Revisited,” 7.

36 Gardner, “The Political Economy of Public Land Use,” 22.