TURNING BACK THE CLOCK TO THE GOOD OLD DAYS

What the Baucus-Crapo Bill Does

By Bill Schneider, 12-13-07

As reported on NewWest.Net a week ago and five days later by daily newspapers, U.S. Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Mike Crapo (R-ID) have introduced S. 2438, the Fee Repeal and Expanded Access Act of 2007. The original stories on the introduction, including my article, only offered generalities about intent of the landmark legislation. Since then, a lot of questions have come up on what impact this bill would have when passed.

To answer those questions, I had a long chat with the staffers for Max Baucus who developed the legislation, and here are the details on what this major bill actually does for all of us who enjoy outdoor recreation on public lands.

	Everybody understands that current fee revenue must be replaced.

The most common concern is replacing the funding. Even federal employees living off fee income probably would prefer to have money come the old fashioned way, through the appropriations process. But after fee advocates slipped the Federal Lands Recreational Enhancement Act (FLREA) through Congress without a vote and made it the law of the land, life changed for all of our dedicated federal employees. Many of them had to raise their own money to continue operating and maintaining recreational facilities and programs--and in many case, their own salary, too.

Consequently--and intentionally, I'm sure--FLREA created a serious incentive for federal employees to institute and increase fees because if they didn't, their programs and jobs would be cut. That caused agency line officers to push the envelope, going way beyond the letter of the law, creating and increasing fees in a desperate attempt to keep operating.

FLREA created even more incentive--again, intentionally, I'm sure--to institute and raise fees by allowing districts and parks to keep fee income instead of sending it to the Treasury--and hope it would be appropriated back to them.

The Baucus-Crapo bill would take away most fee-charging authority and require any remaining fees to go back to the Treasury instead of staying with the local area. But will this fee revenue be replaced with real appropriations? Clearly, most upcoming opposition to the bill will focus on this question, as it should.

At this point, there is nothing specifically in the bill about replacing the funding, but Baucus staffers assured me that the senator "is committed to make the agency budgets whole" and will "squeeze Congress" to replace the fee revenue. As chair of the powerful Finance Committee, Baucus is certainly in a position to do this.

Here's the firm message coming from the office of Max Baucus: "Max is committed to getting as much money for the recreation programs as possible. We'll be fighting throughout the appropriations process to make sure the funds coming in from fees are replaced. And we believe people in Senator Crapo's office want to see the same thing happen."

That's strong talk, but still just talk, of course. I'm sure federal employees living on fees will remain skeptical, but they should find some comfort in two powerful senators, one from each party, being in their camp.

Baucus staffers also discussed firefighting costs, the "800-pound gorilla out there sucking up the Forest Service budget." In future years, fighting forest fires might burn up 50 percent of the agency's budget--and not just money directly budgeted for fire fighting. In every big fire year, like we just had in 2007, the FS faces unbudgeted fire-related costs, so what happens? Agency heads raid already shriveled recreation budgets to cover fire cost overruns.

Senator Baucus also has a plan for this problem. As part of climate change legislation currently being debated in the Senate, he has created an $800 million fund dedicated to cover firefighting costs of the FS and other federal agencies and prevent raids on other budgets such as recreation.

So, given these sincere efforts by Baucus, Crapo and powerful politicians, it seems like everybody understands that current fee revenue must be replaced, at least, and more likely, increased.

Getting accurate figures on how much fee income actually comes in is almost impossible, but clearly, the total amount generated by fees is minuscule compared to other federal expenditures such as the endless money pit I call the Trillion Dollar War and can be easily replaced through the appropriations process like it was for many decades before the Age of FLREA.

Now, to questions about what S. 2438 actually does, Baucus staffers had these answers. In general, the bill takes us back to the way it was before FLREA.

Concerning our national parks, Baucus believes most people accept paying a reasonable entrance fee or for a night in a secure, developed campground, but after that, access and enjoyment of our national parks should be free.

The bill allows the National Park Service (NPS) to continue charging entrance fees, but caps them at $25 per vehicle (not per person) with no fee for people under 16. The recently launched America the Beautiful Pass would go away, but the NPS can sell an annual pass similar to the Golden Eagle Pass, but the bill caps the cost at $65 per year.

The NPS can also continue charging for staying overnight in developed campgrounds with facilities like garbage disposal and toilets. But the bill seeks to prevent the "layering" of fees i.e. paying the entrance fee and then have more fees layered on after inside the park. The NPS could charge for "expanded amenities," such as a museum, visitor center or developed campground, but not for parking or enjoying the natural amenities. Hence no parking fees or permits for backcountry hiking or river running.

For the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies, the bill changes things more radically than in does for the NPS. The agencies could still charge a fee to stay in a developed campground or enter a visitor center filled with pricey interpretive displays, but all other fees are disallowed. Also gone are the High Impact Recreation Areas, large areas designated by the FS, so the agency can charge fees to drive through our national forests.

Definitely no more entrance fees to drive into national forests. The toll booths will be coming down.

I'm sure that even more details will come out as the debate continues over the Baucus-Crapo bill, and the bill will be amended. I'll try to keep you informed as more information becomes available.

Also, for many related articles on the recreational fee controversy, check out the Recreation Fee Chronology. [End of article]

Bill,

Please don't be a sucker and fall for the old line, “is committed to make the agency budgets whole.” It simply won't happen. Baucus will talk tough now, but in the long term he and the other elected officials will turn their attention to something more pressing, something that will help get the most votes at the least cost. And that is least cost based on impact to the federal budget or to the political chits each lawmaker builds up with their colleagues.

They will always find the best way to increase political support on the cheap. This year, it's getting votes on the cheap to be opposed to the fees and not have an answer for the degredation of the facilities and the resources that are impacted by public overuse and abuse of the public lands.

I think in 5-10 years from now if your wet dream about repeal of FLREA has happened you will be faced with budgets about 50 % where they are now and citizens and politicians doing nothing but complaining about the crappy facilities and degraded lands. Be careful what you wish for, Bill.

The USFS just bought tasers for all its law enforcement people. And its making everyone a law enforcement person. They have spent vast amounts investigating people they don't like and reassigning employees who dare to speak their mind. It does things that shouldn't be part of its mission just because they can fundraise for those things. Which results in money coming in, poor service in these areas, and a protection of turf that prevents better service from the nonprofit or private sectors. This agency does not need need more money, it needs to implement standard accounting procedures and it needs to define what is and is not part of its mission. (And they need to sell those tasers at some fundrasing auction!)

Bill writes "as chair of the powerful Finance Committee, Baucus is certainly in a position" to make land management agencies whole. If he were chairman of appropriations that might be true, but Finance deals with taxes. It was from his position as ranking member of Finance in 2001 that Baucus helped secure passage of President Bush's disastrous $1.35 trillion package of tax cuts in 2001.

Jim,
What do you mean by the USFS is "... making everyone a law enforcement person?"

No NPS "fees or permits for backcountry...river running"? How about the Grand Canyon, Gate of Lodore, Cataract Canyon, etc.? Some NPS backcountry rivers had fees & permits prior to FLREA---but this article implies there would be none with this new legislation, is that correct?

AB,

That is what the people who wrote the bill told me. Unless the agnecy is using "some other authority" besides FLREA or the Land and Water Consrvation fund to charge fees, thee fees would be disallowed by the Baucus-Crapo bill.

Bill

Given that the Chief of the US Forest Service continues to make 'unmanaged recreation' a priority (and she should), then I think we should expect to see a greater proportion of the FS budget allocated to recreation.

It is interesting to note that one particular FS activity (fire-fighting) has never had to raise it's own revenue in the way that other mandated multiple uses (timber, grazing, mining, etc.) have had to.

Thanks for the story, Bill, but I'm not optimistic about the results of this legislation. There aren't enough Federal Government appropriations to go around now...just look at the deficits we've been running. Critics of government alway say that it should run more like a business. I can't think of a fairer way to fund FS's limited resources that we all enjoy and use, than to charge those who are using them. Some uses are more disruptive of the resource, but who better to decide the cost of those disruptive uses and match it with the fees to be charged than the Forest Service? When you compare the costs of these fees to other costs of enjoying our forests, for example, the cost of gas to get there, we should be able to handle a few fees. A question I have is, are there additional responsibilities, for example, law enforcement or Homeland Security that these fees are covering? That would be cost that should be paid out of the general fund.

The bill is posted to Thomas. Has a whopping two co-sponsors and there is no House counterpart. Might become a rider.
Allows fees on sites that offer at least 5 of 9 recreation improvements.
Prohibits BuRec and BLM RAT fees.
Increases NPS fees a good bit.
Bill inadvertently raises the issue of government employees having to support their own jobs. Private sector does that all the time -- and then if they do a good job of it, they pay taxes that go to the Treasury and are, um, appropriated. It might be a good idea if the USFS and other agencies had that general attitude.
Then we might see some timber management, smaller fires, better recreation infrastructure....just like in the good old days before everything was sued into paralysis.

Dave,
You do make a good point, but if USFS employees were required to support their own jobs, then it would be all about how much money they could make - not neccessarily what is best for the land. There's a reason why government does not act like the private sector (Plum Creek timber and Weyerhauser anyone?). Many projects just don't lend themselves to that type of management (weed spraying, culvert removal, etc.). I firmly believe 99% of the employees are truely doing what they think is the right thing, regardless of how much money is involved.

Major generalization coming up: Has the Homeland Security Department done so well, what with all the 1-bidder contracts, ties to Cheney, etc.? Personal gain and interest should be kept out of government when possible.

MB,
What is best for the land is a seriously open debate at this point. I would argue that current policy stinketh.
Even such eco-luminaries as Jerry Franklin and Norm Johnson have finally come out of the green closet, testifying that landscape-scale vegetation management, with a mechanical component, is needed toot sweet. They even grudgingly concede that revenues from products would help cover the cost of the needed management.
I would argue that revenues from products would cover ALL the cost of needed management, plus I would argue that even federal employees have an obligation to minimize their burden upon taxpayers. There was an analysis done on Region Six for Intertribal/Interior that showed Indians, state and private ground all covering their expense of management while USFS was spending at least four times what it took in. And that was BEFORE all the epic fires.
Any business, or any person, throwing money away like that would be sleeping under the bridge yesterday.
As for PCT, I can speak directly to their practices. I feel they have taken too many trees from their ground to maintain current levels of harvest in perpetuity. Yet their present methods of harvest are actually pretty good. Just yesterday I was looking at a harvest plan some cronies of mine are executing and it specifically says "visually pleasing" with a fair number of nice leave-trees. As for the land itself, you'd be hard-pressed to see much in the way of "bad."
In short, they are certainly slicking things off, but they are slicking things off right. The forest will be back, and in fact, is still a forest.
As for DHS, TSA et al, I agree. They reek. If you have a solution, I suggest you run for office and straighten it all out.

Dave,
I would love to see the FS go back to the days of paying for all management activities with timber harvest revenue... it would solve a lot of the economic woes seen today. As you pointed out in your previous post, in today's litigious atmosphere, it just doesn't get the job done anymore... and that's just the timber lawsuits. I'm sure you're aware of the current Sierra Club lawsuit against the FS to allow more burning.

I also agree that federal employees have an obligation to minimize the tax burden - which they do with economic analysis providing the alternative with best value to the government (i.e. public taxpayers). Trouble is, those alternatives are never supported by the groups that most often sue the FS.

As far as spending more than it takes in, the FS barely recieves enough of a budget to cover employee salaries, let alone spend on worthwhile projects... fire spending aside (yuck - I HATE the current policy).

With regards to Plum Creek, I have no problem in general with their harvesting practices. I do think they tend to do a pretty good job in that respect. What came to my mind was their current foray into the real estate business.

As with most issues, this is complicated with many sides and shades of gray. I wish I had the solution!

Forgot my main point:

I just think it would open up Pandora's Box if gov't employees were driven to keep their jobs based on how much money they generate for their agency.

On the same day that the taser purchase hit the press there was also a report that since the USFS can't hire enough law enforcement people they are giving that responsibility to numerous employees whose jobs did not include it in the past. Not only did they stock up on tasers, they didn't invest in any training for them. Now we'll have people who had law enforcement dumped on them using tasers without proper training?

The agency is a mess. I'll support more resources for it when I see them using what they have responsibly.

There have also been some reports that the agency has received more recreation funding but that it isn't making it to the end of the line where the public sees any benefit. Of course this is hard to determine when their accounting has been deemed unintelligible by the GSA.

Its not surprising there are no cosponsors at the moment, its a new bill. And congress is trying to figure out how to budget the government this week, which is proving difficult when there isn't money to do everything.

Can or should we really expect the taxpayer to pick up the entire bill for the USFS? Environemtnal groups have nearly eliminated the money from timbering, and now they want to eliminate livestock usage and lease money. They also want it maintained for only back packers, no roads, which means extra expense getting trash out, emptying toilets or dealing with tons of human waste. Fighting the fires resulting form dead timber build up is costing more and more difficult to fight.
We really need some paying customers sharing the cost....and of course the use. We simply must reign in the "me onlys".

Marion - isn't leg tired from kicking that dead horse??
One of the basic undelying principles of this program IS: the LOCALS pay for what THEY use in THEIR area - if you don't use use it, you don't have to pay for it!!
SO - see a doctor about your crainial rectal insertion and TRY to learn something about what you are saying!!
As many other folks in this blog have stated; we ALL pay taxes for things we don't want or like; that is the WAY of the world/country; if you don't like it- CHANGE it or LEAVE!! The saying; "It's a FREE country" doesn't mean it costs NOTHING TO BE HERE- but it does MEAN you are FREE to GO somewher else!!

Sorry, D. Herber, I thought the article was about doing away with the fees for recreation. I have no objection to them at all. I guess I misundestood, and thought they wanted more tax money to pay for recreation so the user didn't have to...you know freeloaders. Sorry for the confusion. No real need to get vulgar.

on a lighter note - this issue may go away if you vote for ron paul. he wants to eliminate all federally owned land with the exception of a few national parks. he thinks the federal govt should turn over all its land to the states. individual states should then decide what to do with the land. he suggests they sell it to private individuals who can subdivide it and/or develop the availbale natural resources. he seriously thinks this approach is what is needed to help the economy along, ease the housing market crisis (?) and reduce the overly humongous federal govt and the national debt. hmmmmm.....

Pogoesque.....this USFS need for money. They are run like a dope cartel when you look at it. All the people on the ground locally are to collect the money, and then the boys up the line take it all for management fees. The fee issue can start out benign, but it will abcess and rot and the money will go to D.C. for whatever they can do with it. I have a career in paying into special funds like Knutson-Vandenberg, slash disposal, road maintenance, and all that money was squandered long before it could be spent on what it was intended for. I am a skeptic.

To regain a modicum of recreation use and structure, the first issue is to cut off the head of the monster that is having a politically run USFS with the Chief being a political appointee instead of the person being someone long groomed for the job through the SES process. Just me talking about better times in the far past.

Yep. Franklin and Johnson have done a 180, a huge course correction, and I am still recovering from whiplash. Until I see results, I am speechless. I applaud their candor. Kittens open their eyes in weeks. Too bad academics take decades.

If my memory serves me, the USFS has just spent the better part of a half century maintaining and repairing the efforts of the CCC in trail construction, aforestation of forests that used to burn frequently or be fired frequently for cultivation of forage resources, and construction of campgrounds and administration buildings, and housing. Never having enough money to get the job done right, some assets have melted into the ground, some are currently being sold, and many have been protected by the Antiquities Act but ignored by the US Govt under their own rules. All that USFS police activity is to make sure someone does not dig up a bottle from an old outhouse while their bosses let buildings rot and campgrounds be closed. I just love the sight of a USFS law enforcement rig pullling over speeders on the highway and writing tickets. My federal money being pissed away while their Rome burns. I drifted.

The only way to have the facilities and resources the public lands of the New West so desperately need is to somehow be able to grab Congressional appendages and apply pressure, and that has to be done by representation from the West against the much more numerous representation from the East. Or turn it into a civil rights issue or a national defense issue. Or just admit it will never happen, that the old timers were smarter than we are today, in that they had the timber program to siphon money off of to keep all the amenities funded, and the locals in good roads, schools, and supporting the efforts to keep money in the county.

Franklin and Johnson may have changed direction, but the PILT money just again evaporated, and that is the real sign of how much the US majority cares about the rural New West, and their public lands. If you think about all the money that goes, untaxed, to support the NGOs, the Sierra Clubs, the Defenders of Wildlife, the Wilderness Society, that seemingly endless list, you can appreciate why there is no money for the USFS recreation programs. We don't collect taxes from the obfuscators! They don't pay their share! But they damn well cost the programs endless amounts of money in their incessant litigation.

We have discovered the enemy and he is us. Or is it we forgot to dance with the gal what brung us?

If we, the people do not get a grip on the enviros, they will soon have total control over our forests and will be demanding that we stay out and cover all of their expenses. That is exactly what they have in mind.

Well, heck! When you stop and think about: Politicians should be in charge of politics, road builders should be in charge of building roads, architects should be in charge of designing buildings, ranchers should be in charge of ranching, stockbrokers should be in charge of stock investing, oil men should be in charge of drilling for oil............and environmentalists should be in charge of THE ENVIRONMENT!!
Makes sense doesn't it!

Well Frank, I wouldn't have any problem with that, but the enviros do not fix the environment, they file money eating lawsuits to force others to do what they want done, good or bad for the environment. Imagine the things we could do for the environment if we had the money spent on lawsuits to use for it. We might even have that utopia they are trying to make everyone else provide for them.

Why doesn't the federal govt. allow dead or diseased trees to be harvested? Tree huggers should have to volunteer as a fire fighter. Fires are a natural occurrence when trees become too thick, diseased or old. Nature (forest animals) were just given a helping hand - plus the story of Bambi wouldn't have been written had clear cutting been practiced.

The federal government harvests dead and diseased trees on a regular basis.

Mary Beth, what you said is true, but that is like saying I go to church on a regular basis------every time family dies, I regularly go to their church service, but I don't go to every service in town or my state.

The USFS does not salvage one one thousandth of one percent of the trees that die. The amount is almost of no statistical value. The are not doing what their agency was created to do, and now even authors of the Northwest Forest Plan, Jerry Franklin and Norm Johnson, are admonishing the USFS and Congress to step up thinning and salvage logging by many times, just to save the old growth and its attendant species from certain extirpation from conflagration.

The environmentalists say that they do want is best for the environment - Why did native americans would sometimes burn areas of the forest? To allow animals and vegetation to survive? Suppose? Animals and grass cannot move or survive when the trees are 3-4' away from each other. Not even the sun can penetrate their branches to reach the earth.

bearbait,

I absolutely agree - I just was pointing out to Irene that the federal government DOES allow that type of harvest... probably could have worded my hasty response in a better fashion.

Interesting turn-about on Franklin and Johnson's end...

On a side note -
It is location-specific, but in my Ranger District, half or more of all projects with a commercial timber component are comprised of salvage of lodgepole pine killed or infested with mountain pine beetle. I guess in my eyes that makes it pretty "regular" around here.

Check a timber sale in the West Fork of the Madison in Montana where a group appeal to stop a timber harves was over-turned by a judge recently.

It's easy to pick out the most radical stance of any group and assume, for our own purposes, that those are the views of the entire group; especially since the radical elements are normally the most vocal. Most animal rights people, for example, don't want everybody to give up meat. They simply believe that animals shouldn't be made to suffer needlessly. Most environmentalists don't want us all to go back to living in caves. They simply want to find better, more efficient and sustainable ways to maintain our standards of life. Just as all ranchers are not the "shoot and shut up, kill all the wolves, burn down Washington, run the feds off'n my land" radicals that a few make it look like they are.
Bark beetles are killing our forests because of the lack of long, cold winters......because of global warming. (I went skiing in Yellowstone yesterday, Dec. 16, in my shirt sleeves!). Forests are overgrown because of mankind's insistence to put out every little fire for over a hundred years.
As for the fees: Good for Max on this one. Can you imagine the Utopia we might have if we had all the money that has been spent (and misplaced!) in Iraq and Afghanistan? Maybe NO FEES on public lands. Maybe health care for all Americans. Maybe no hunger. Maybe fix social security.
We can only dream.........

Frank, bark beetles are killing trees because there are too many of them (trees) and they do not have enough water or nutrients, because of drought, heat or not enough cold weather. With far fewer trees, droughts are not the problem we are having today.

Man came into a place where the Native First People set fires on a regular basis to maintain open forests. First, we did our damnedest to kill all those savages, and then we prohibited burning, began to log, and then stopped all logging. As a result, we have 2/3 of our public forestlands grossly overstocked with trees gasping for water and nutrients, and some real idiots running around preaching the gospel of conflagration as our saviour. Radicals in control can only bring us radical solutions. Common sense is out the window.

Last week, noted old growth forest scientists told a Congressional hearing that we had better get to thinning, to a very open canopy, soon, or we lose all the old growth heritage forests that so many gave so much to save. The pendulum swung way too far one way, and now is on its way back, and it is my hope that a common sense backstop will shorten its swing....in either direction. Radicals are radicals, and the best laid plans of mice and men of' go astray...

I just put down the Economist, and was reading about all the success that NATO is having in parts of Afghanistan, and that our most egregious mistake was not to put more "boots on the ground" early on. (That is doing something on the "cheap".) Some parts of Afghan government is doing its job, and their national police force/army is coming along nicely. In this nation of instant gratification, we have to somehow acquire the patience needed to see something through to its logical end, whether it be forest policy or nation saving/building. I watched a great Division III running back last saturday who had the most patience of any runner I have seen in several years. He waited until he had the hole he needed, and then burst, cheetah like, through the hole. Beaver was his name. Well, Beavers are patient and persevere. Tear out their dam and tomorrow it will be rebuilt. We need some of that in this country. We need to persevere, to stick with it, to overcome, to restore our forests, our faith in government, our ability to be the best and the most honorable.

I would like not to spend money on a lot of stuff. I would not like to spend a million and half bucks on every person who got hurricane damaged in New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast. I would not like to give social security benefits to people who our country admits in their old age, people who did not pay into the system. I would not like to have Congress getting full wally health coverage and not me. There are many things about this place I would like changed, and if I am patient, they will in time if my cause is just. If not, I will have a long wait for nothing. We can only dream.

bearbait - you write (say) everything so much better and in detail than I attempted to do.

Irene: the most important thing is TO say something. A logger from Montana once said in a meeting that the country is run by the people who show up, talk, write and vote. Those sitting on the sidelines receive what those who participate fight for. And thank you for the compliment. You have a Merry Christmas.

"Frank, bark beetles are killing trees because there are too many of them (trees) and they do not have enough water or nutrients, because of drought, heat or not enough cold weather.".........because of global warming. Isn't that what I said?
"Man (I presume you mean 'white man'" came into a place where the Native First People set fires on a regular basis to maintain open forests."............Prescribed burns are done regularly on National Forest lands across the country when conditions allow. Heck, they even did a couple in Yellowstone this year. Unfortunately, because of over 100 years of fire suppression, bark beetles and global warming, most forests aren't waiting to burn. Remember, fire is a vital part of the NATURAL processes, and forests managed to exist for millions of years without man's "help". From an ecological standpoint a natural forest fire is not a tragedy; as demonstrated by the 1988 Yellowstone fires. They are only a tragedy to humans who have lost their homes, communities or "view". The bark beetles are the real tragedy because they are killing our forests without nourishing the soil, germinating the pine seeds and regenerating plant communities.
......."we had better get to thinning, to a very open canopy, soon, or we lose all the old growth heritage forests that so many gave so much to save." The problem with "thinning" is that the forests that need to be thinned are the ones near towns, communities and homes. Of course folks who live in these areas don't want to lose their "mountain atmosphere" and "privacy". Of course the logging industry will tell you that we need to "thin" (read that 'log') wilderness areas, which will (and always have) take care of themselves through NATURAL processes....including fire; which, again, is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to a healthy ecosystem.
....."Afghanistan, and that our most egregious mistake was not to put more "boots on the ground" early on." Hard to argue with that! That is exactly what we should have done. Gone in strong and gotten bin Laden and been done with it. Instead of wasting 500 billion dollars, 4,000 US dead and 60,000 wounded in Iraq. Estimates now are that the war in Iraq will cost more than one trillion dollars before we get out. You can fix a lot over here for one trillion bucks.
"I would not like to spend a million and half bucks on every person who got hurricane damaged in New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast."
Well I have no problem spending whatever is necessary to help any American who truly needs it (would much rather spend money to build America, than to destroy Iraq), waste is the hallmark of our current administration. David Letterman got $8,000 in rancher subsidies last year for his "hobby" ranch in Montana. To his credit he donated it to charity.
"I would not like to have Congress getting full wally health coverage and not me.".........Isn't that what I said?

Frank: actually, forests evolved in North America WITH man. When man arrived, at the end of the last Ice Age, the land was still mostly covered with ice and perpetual snow fields, albeit in a period of gross climate change and global warming.

Our North American forests are less than 15,000 years old. Or at least the ones at elevation and north of 40 degrees lat or thereabouts. The forests moved to occupy new lands as those lands became climate favorable. Some moved up slope, and some moved north. But forests move as surely as the slug in your garden, albeit at a much slower rate.

They surely did not start as old growth forests. They start as a tree pioneering a new site, and his use of water or providing shade or a drip line nourishes another new seedling. It is a slow process to instant gratification America, but a rocket ship ride in evolutionary time. And right with them were the First People, who quickly learned (all that protein building large brains) to pre-emptive burn for safety or to herd animals or provide for agriculture. In some form of like mindedness and serendipity, man began the cultivation of a cereal and a legume, together, almost simultaneously around the world. Corn and beans here, rice and soybeans in East Asia, lentils and barley in the MidEast. Probably as a hedge against reduction in available game seasonally. In the Pacific Islands, of taro cultivation and pigs, when things got tough they ate each other or moved on to colonize another island somewhere far away. Whatever, they survived, and they modified their environment in order to survive.

Now you can be an environmental troglodyte and believe that lightening fire is the natural forest manager, but those who have evolved beyond their caves would like you to understand that set fire, for thousands of years, is what shaped the environment and allowed for trees to live beyond 50 to 100 years instead of being consumed by wildfire in their first century. Our ancestors on this land were not stupid and were not consumed with political correctness. They burned for many reasons, but burn they did. They burned for sanitation (no "00" shovels to dig a latrine trench), to have a safe place to live (who likes wildfire coming in the night--the Norm MacClean described defense), to herd animals, or to leave them with places of refuge that were easy to hunt them in, to provide for regrowth of plants that provided fruits, seeds, or strands to make baskets or useful tools. The cumulative result was the Edenic forests described and found by early Europeans on this land. Thousands of years of set fire, and millions of lightening fires deprived of conflagration fuels. That is how you get "Old Growth" forests, the diversity of meadows, parks, and prairies, and open grown forests with large old trees and ease of life for hunter/gatherer peoples.

To regain that land use pattern, millions of acres of vastly overstocked forests will have to have fuels (trees!!!) removed, and not just a few little ones. It takes vision and thought, and appreciation and knowledge of the trail to this time and these places to understand what needs to happen. However, if you have the knee-jerk, anti-logging, Luddite view of forest management activity, and Restoration Forestry, then you will surely lose the forests you most love, and all that they were. It will be all our losing, but you in particular. What a shame!!

Our forests are sort of like concentration camps for trees. Zealously guarded, not fed, not provided sanitation, and crowded beyond belief. Bark beetles are just the typhus, dysentery, wholesale population malaise that you see in a concentration camp. Gaunt, denuded, dead, lifeless, hopelessly crowded trees, all suffering from common parasites and diseases. And all this is celebrated in the propaganda of their Econazis keepers who now proclaim conflagration as the final solution. There will be a day of reckoning. Public opinion will have its own Nuremburg event in the voting booths. One too many properties burned, one too many killed needlessly. It will come.

Wow! Thank you for the education! I can now clearly see that the globe's environment is totally dependent on man's "management". I can now see what a....what did you call me?....."troglodyte" I have been! Thinking that man has been damaging the environment through pollution and global warming. Thinking that the slashing and burning of tens of thousands of acres of rain forests (10,000 sq. miles in one year alone in Brazil) was a bad thing!
OK. So the first people came across the Bering Straight and immediately saw the necessity of setting up a Dept. of Agriculture....no doubt they also set up a Dept. of Fish and Game, because without intense management, and predator control, it is clear that wildlife would not have survived.......What an admirable job those several thousand early pre-historic peoples did in managing hundreds of millions of sq. miles of forest! Not to mention the wildlife! How incredibly naive of the Encyclopedia Britannia saying that, "Planned management of forests with the aim of perpetuating and improving them is a relatively new development"......."spreading from Europe to the rest of the world in the Nineteenth Century"!! And that prior to that "the process of destruction and deterioration was encouraged by the almost universal belief that the forests were inexhaustible....".
No! No! No! My brain hurts! Guess I'm not ready to evolve out of my cave yet! Can't believe that the Earth would shrivel up and whither away without man's "management". Too many (though not nearly enough) places where man seldom sets foot that are doing very well, thank you very much! Too many places where man did not live (at least not in very many numbers) down through the centuries that did quite well without him. Too many forests that burn from natural, lightning caused fires that have resurrected themselves quite well.
NO! MAN IS NOT GOD!!
BTW...I never said that I am opposed to logging. I live in a wooden house, use wood to heat it and have plenty of wooden furniture. What I am opposed to is clear cutting, destroying critical wildlife habitat, cutting down old growth (which, in order to get "old" has probably survived many fires) and using "healthy forests" as an excuse to build roads into and log wilderness areas.

Bearbait - It's wonderful to have people in the world as knowledgeable (sp?) as you. Thanks so much for sharing. I'm copying your last comment (if that's okay with you and taking it to the teacher's room). I think that there are many at our school who would enjoy and appreciate reading this informative write-up.

It seems that these discussions always end up in the same place regardless of the original issue.