Dear HCN,
It seems nearly every
issue of High Country News has some article dealing with the
decline and fall of the U.S. Forest Service. This strikes near and
dear to my heart since I spent over 27 years with the agency.
The agency is not the same one I started working
for in 1970. Until only a few short years ago, the Forest Service
was considered a model government bureaucracy – and no, that is not
an oxymoron. We wore the white hats and we had a noble mission. We
cared and we were respected. Starting with the Reagan revolution,
something significant changed. At least that’s when I noticed it.
The people of the West, still to my amazement and bewilderment,
shifted to an extreme in electing people who belong more to the
Robber Baron era of a century ago. Budgets were slashed, employees
ridiculed, and our objectives challenged.
I think
we have so discouraged, so demoralized people, that (just as in
politics), too many of the people who should be leaders just quit
in disgust. When the political leaders such as the Chenoweths, the
Craigs, the Hansens, etc., ask the agency to do things counter to
the Forest Service mission and laws, no one is able to stand up to
them. The Jack Ward Thomases, the Tom Kovalickys, Paul Rieses, try
but too often fall prey to those who don’t have courage or
convictions to say “NO, that is counter to our mission and the
law.”
Far too often in my career, I watched as
the “get the cut” mentality overruled the wildlife, the recreation,
the other parts of our mission. I cared for the land and I know
many “ologists’ who similarly tried to do their best. The Forest
Service during my career was an agent of compromise and most of us
could deal with this. But when one day you wake up and have
absolutely no allies, things get tough.
Now, the
extractive industries, the environmental community, the politicians
– all have only vituperative, venomous tirades against not only the
agency, but also the people trying their best on the ground. This
wears on you after a while. I got tired of being considered the
evil one only trying to put ranchers, loggers, just about anyone
who used the land, out of business.
When I
retired last summer, I felt that the Forest Service as it existed
for me for nearly three decades was doomed to fall. But I’m enough
of a biologist to understand the concept of evolution. Things must
change and they are changing. What I hate is to the good people
berated just because their leaders aren’t able to
adapt.
Joe
Colwell
Hotchkiss,
Colorado
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Can the Forest Service change?.
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