Michelle Burkhart points out that staff shortages in
the national forests mean that citizens often step in to pick up
the slack (HCN, 12/26/05: Where have all the rangers gone?). This
is certainly true on Colorado’s Roosevelt National Forest
(“co-managed” as one unit with the Arapaho National Forest and the
Pawnee National Grassland, thus spreading staff even thinner). At
the present, there isn’t a single person on the forest(s)
whose primary job is responsibility for wilderness. Nor is anyone
tagged as the forest trails coordinator. And it shows.
The Poudre Wilderness Volunteers have done an incredible job of
keeping the Arapaho-Roosevelt backcountry from sliding into
complete ruin.
This forest complex purportedly has the
highest recreation-use figures of any national forest unit. Yet the
forest, despite prodding and assistance from groups like the Poudre
volunteers and the financial windfall from the recreation access
tax, has steadfastly refused to scratch, bite and claw for adequate
funding to manage the resources. That we have — at present
— a consistently motivated group of citizens interested in
keeping our public resources from being trashed is pretty
wonderful.
But it’s a losing cause if, in the long
run, the feds don’t cough up enough money to fund a
professional presence, not just in the office (doing contract
administration with some huge corporate concessionaire) but in the
field.
Agency folks can fight for bigger budgets. But if
they try rowing really hard against the tide, they will get trashed
by the politicos at the regional and national headquarters and, of
course, at the department level. So between bureaucratic inertia
and some semblance of non-suicidal career care, not much pushing
will occur at the forest level.
I know a few managers
who’d love to have the public push back against the direction
being taken in this region and nationally.
Woody
Hesselbarth
Fort Collins, Colorado
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Forest Service needs more budget, not just volunteers.
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