Forest Service Chief Warns Against ‘Demonization’ Thomas Says Agency Needs ‘Some Help’ As It Works Through Thorny Land-Use Issues

The chief of the U.S. Forest Service warned against demonizing his agency when he addressed a conference here Tuesday reviewing the impact of the National Forest Management Act.

“This demonization (of the Forest Service) is on the verge of bringing down this agency,” said Jack Ward Thomas. “There is no solution to these problems through demonization .”

“We need some support. We need some help to work our way through this,” he said.

The National Forest Management Act was passed 20 years ago to reaffirm the agency’s goal of protecting the environment, while allowing for multiple uses. Times have changed since the act was passed and the three-day conference at the University of Colorado’s Natural Resources Law Center focused on reexamining the act and its implications.

About 150 people from across the country - including students, attorneys, scientists, forest managers, civic activists and government officials - attended the conference.

“We are trying to provide an authentic assessment by bringing in all sorts of perspectives,” said Margaret Shannon, a professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, who organized the event.

“Usually laws are assessed behind closed doors. We are doing this in the spirit of today’s participatory democratic process.”

The Forest Service has come under fire in recent years for allowing logging and enacting regulations environmentalists contend threaten forest ecosystems. At the same time, timber industry officials have accused the Forest Service of hampering their production efforts by restricting access to certain lands.

In his 45-minute talk, Thomas acknowledged there were no easy answers when it comes to public land use. He blamed politics for much of the controversy surrounding forest management.

“One of the things we need to do is learn I don’t have near the power that many of you in this room think I have,” he said.

He noted Congress approved the controversial “salvage timber rider” and Clinton signed it last year, forcing the Forest Service to implement it. That measure exempted logging from fish and wildlife regulations, prompting protests across the Northwest.

A move to scrap a requirement that the Forest Service maintain a “viable population” of all vertebrates found in a certain ecosystem also drew the ire of environmentalists.

Such exact measuring is too expensive, Thomas said. The Forest Service planned to maintain forest ecosystems based on more general data.

“There seems to be an illusion that the Forest Service walks in and says, ‘Hey guys, this is what we need to do this.’ And then we stand by and wait for the money,” Thomas said.

Conference participants listened to speakers and broke into small discussion groups.

Participants seemed invigorated by the debate, but not all were convinced the act needed revamping.

“I don’t think NFMA is a problem at all,” said Buzz Williams of the Chattooga River Watershed Coalition in Clayton, Ga. “It’s a law with no teeth.

“To me it’s as simple as this: They’re going to have to get rid of the pressure of special interests - such as the timber industry - with campaign finance reform.”

Gregory H. Aplet of the Wilderness Society in Washington, D.C., agreed.

“The question is do we need to make changes in law or are things working themselves out by themselves,” he said.