Gaps in Bosworth's goals

Editor's note: This is the second of two editorials dealing with U.S. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth's recent discussion with the Post-Register's editorial board.

U.S. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth's four goals for the nation's forests make an ambitious agenda. They are an attempt to steer management of the forests away from the bitter battles over logging and road-building - battles Bosworth says belong to another time - and toward the practical problems of today.

To be fair, that's work enough for any administrator, let along one who also faces mountainous stacks of environmental analysis, the threat - if not the fact - of political interference and ever-mounting demands on an ever-shrinking staff.

Nonetheless, Bosworth and the Forest Service do not have the luxury of avoiding a web of both emerging and long-standing problems just because those issues are nowhere on his list of priorities. These include:

* Salvage logging - There's a drive toward more salvage logging in the wake of wildfires in the current drought period. But how much salvage logging can be done productively before it contributes to serious erosion and forest floor damage? Given the number of sawmills that have closed in the past decade, where's the market for these trees? Two years ago, timber operators largely repudiated a massive salvage sale in Montana's Bitterroot Valley because of erosion problems and because they could not see much profit from the timber sale. Understandably, experienced foresters are asking that salvage choices be rare and judged based on the terrain.

* Old growth - The nation's forests were heavily logged to meet post-World War II housing demands. Since the 1980s, logging has nosedived from 12 billion board feet a year to about 2 billion board feet. So how much old-growth logging is left on the system? From 1991 through 2002, 101 of the 108 national forests have lost money on logging sales. The national forests need to rest awhile.

* Local management - How far can the Forest Service go with proposed local management experiments like stewardship contracts? These are the nation's lands, yet stewardship projects in most Western states could mean imposing local politics on those lands. In Dillon, Mont., for example, Beaverhead County commissioners tried to advance mining and logging priorities on the national forest decision-makers. National forests should remain national.

* Overgrazing - After years of overgrazing, some public lands need restoration. Yet political interference often gets in the way. In Idaho, proposed cutbacks on grazing in the East Fork of the Salmon River Valley and in the Sawtooth National Forest were scaled back or abandoned outright after Idaho's congressional delegation intervened.

* Privatization - The Bush administration wants more Forest Service work outsourced to private contractors. It's bad for morale. More importantly, it's a bad deal for the taxpayer because contractors are not as effective or as efficient as professional land management staff.

* Wilderness - Rules designed to protect wilderness should be tightened and enforced uniformly. The Forest Service also needs more resources devoted specifically to this mission. For example, management of Idaho's Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness is fragmented among four national forest offices - when one office would do.

* Roads - The Forest Service has more miles of roads than the interstate system. That's more than the nation needs or can afford to maintain. More roads should be closed.


Bosworth's priorities

* Controlling wildfires.

* Keeping off-road motorized vehicles on designated trails.

* Preserving open space.

* Stopping invasive weeds and insects.

[Home] [About Us] [Archives] [Classifieds] [Datebook] [Eastern Idaho] [Idahomall] [Letters to the editor] [Local News 8] [Privacy Policy] [Register] [Stocks] [Subscribe] [Talkback] [Town Forum] [Wallpaper] [Weather] [Webmaster] [Yellowstone]