A Century of Managing Rangelands on National Forests - Or It Ain't Easy Being a Range Con in the New West

摘要

A century ago, the Forest Reserves were transferred from the Department of Interior to the Department of Agriculture to be managed by the newly established US Forest Service. That same year, on June 13,1905, the Chief of the Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot, released regulations and instructions for the use of the Forest Reserves. These instructions included the following phrase that has long been considered the primary guiding principle for the management of the National Forests, "In the management of each reserve local questions will be decided on local grounds; ...from the standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run. The Organic Administration Act of 1897 provided the legal foundation for the management of the Forest Reserves. (In 1907, the name Forest Reserves was changed to National Forests.) The 1897 Act stated that the purpose of the Reserves was to secure favorable conditions of water flows and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities ofthe citizens of the United States. Even though timber was of primary concern at the time, the reality was that the greatest impacts and resulting conflicts revolved around grazing on the public lands. The complexities and controversies surrounding use of the forage resources on the National Forest and National Grasslands continue undiminished today. As the Forest Service celebrates its centennial, it is interesting to look back and realize that the basic mission of the National Forest has expanded butremains essentially unchanged since 1905 (see "Forest Service Mission sidebar).