GardenBanter.co.uk - History of the Na'tl Forests (was: Logging (again))

"George Gehrke" wrote in message
news:5Uqu9.9696$46.6848@fe01...

But I don't want what forests remain
"managed". I want you out of them and
everyone else like you.
Leave what's left, 100% alone.

I'm more on your side than not, yet many people have a problem
with this thinking. It was soon after I began to wonder about
such things, in particular about how realistic it might be to hold
such opinions as yours, that I realized I needed to learn a lot
more about the history of the forests, and of the use of natural
resources in the U.S. in general (which is why I'm now in law
school, btw).

This has led me to learn about the legislative history of our
national forests, as embodied in things like The Right-of-Way
Permit Acts of 1891 and 1901, The Forest Right-of-Way Act of 1905,
The Organic Administration Act of 1897, The Multiple-Use
Sustained-Yield Act of 1960, etc.

When the national forests were being created in the 1890s and
onward, their purposes were two-fold: To secure the ability to
produce timber, and to protect the precious sources of water which
were necessary for development of the young West. Concerns about
recreation, aesthetics, eco-system preservation, overall
environmental health, and fish and wildlife didn't come into it
until much later -- the Nat'l Parks dealt with these things in
some ways, but their administration was a separate bureaucracy
altogether. To this day we are living under this legacy. Each
fight over logging, fire management, eco-system destruction,
aesthetics, and so on, can be seen in light of this history. (You
can get a nice treatment of this in 'U.S. v. New Mexico', 438 U.S.
696, a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court opinion -- where the federal gov't
fought with the state of N.M. over the use of water from The Rio
Mimbres river, in the southwestern highlands of New Mexico -- in
only 14 pages. N.M. won to maintain control over its water.)

My opinion is that it's convenient for business interests to
interpret this legislative (and regulatory/administrative) history
to its advantage. Congress has control. As long as business
interests are more powerful in lobbying and more willing to give
money to campaigns of politicians who support them, things are not
going to change much -- the nat'l forests will still be primarily
about managing the environment to promote growth and business via
control of water and timber.

Changing the picture will require much better organization
among those concerned with the environment beyond its use in
development. The problem of course is that its essentially a
non-profit motivation, which is a distinct disadvantage when
fighting against narrowly focused, profit motivated corporations.
(Those companies have kick-ass lawyers, along with everything
else.)

There's a maze of legislative history to consider, plus
administrative and regulatory histories that color every issue.
I'll get back to you.

Rico
Sacramento

P.S. I'm going through rec.backcountry.