Stumping the Forester

New demands are being made on forests, both public and private; and as a result, new demands are being made on foresters too.

Conservation organizations have challenged all aspects of public forest management in recent years. Perhaps the outstanding case in 1971 was the suit filed by the Sierra Club and two Alaska groups seeking to prevent a major sale of timber from the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska. The conservationists lost the immediate suit (filed in February 1970) when in March 1971 the federal judge ruled (1) that the plaintiffs had failed to exhaust their administrative remedies in a timely fashion and (2) that the sale was not an abuse of administrative discretion as the Club had claimed. The conservationists did win one important victory as the judge affirmed their right to institute a class action on behalf of the larger class of conservationists everywhere. The suit may be appealed.

The controversy over clear-cutting on the national forests continued, with extensive and sometimes rather emotional hearings before a congressional committee in April. Later in the year bills were introduced to declare a two-year moratorium on clear-cutting in the national forests, but even some of the most vocal opponents of clear-cutting did not support such proposals. There were continued challenges to roads through forest areas, such as one opposing a road through parts of the Cherokee National Forest, which it was claimed would seriously damage the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest.

From a very different direction came demands for an increased timber harvest. If the Administration's housing goals are to be met, total timber cut from all types and ownerships of forests must rise about 20 to 25 percent in the next few years as compared with the recent past. An interdepartmental Task Force on Softwood Lumber and Plywood filed a report in June 1971, which was primarily a review of all aspects of the forest supply and demand situation with attention to foreign trade, prices, and related matters. In September the President announced the appointment of a President’s Advisory Panel on Timber and the Environment (the Panel includes Marion Clawson of RFF); it is to report by July 1, 1972, on means of increasing timber supply while at the same time protecting and enhancing the quality of the environment.

Meanwhile, the Forest Service was re-examining its programs. During the summer it released a report on "Forest Management in Wyoming," which complemented one on forest management in Montana released a year earlier. In each case, study teams of specialists within the Forest Service were asked to review the management of national forests; each team was set up outside of the normal line of command in the Forest Service, and was expected to arrive at an independent judgment about management of national forests in the respective states. Some have been skeptical of the independence of such teams, but the reports have emphasized the ways and the degree in which actual forest management has deviated from multiple use principles. In various public statements throughout the year, top Forest Service officials have conceded errors in operations and weaknesses in forest management practices but have defended the Service's record. They continue with clear-cutting, at least in some areas—and clear-cutting has been the practice most under fire.

Also during 1971, some professional foresters not aligned with forest industries, the Forest Service, or the conservationist organizations have restated and emphasized the principles of good forest management, including the role that clear-cutting and other harvest techniques play; and they have emphasized that some groups within the total citizenry gain from wilderness preservation whereas other groups gain from timber harvest. Meanwhile, spokesmen for the organized conservationist groups have kept up their criticisms of forest practices in general and those of the Forest Service in particular. Forestry is no longer a quiet place to get away from it all.