The National Forests of the Northern Region Living Legacy—

The Bitterroot controversy was a symptom of the change taking place in national forest management—change that had accelerated in the years since World War II. Dennis C. LeMaster's Decade of Change noted that in the first half-century of Forest Service management of the national forests, its statutory authority derived from a total of six legislative enactments, including the Forest Reserve Act (1891), the Organic Administrative Act (1897), the Transfer Act (1905), the Weeks Law (1911), and the Clarke-McNary Act (1924). These laws served admirably, so long as the demands upon the resources of a national forest remained small. Demands tended to be local, and the response equally local—often resolved by the ranger on the ranger district. As the public's demands broadened, the Forest Service response required greater participation first from the forest, then from the region, and increasingly from the Chiefs office. After World War II, according to LeMaster, the demands for the resources available in the national forests "grew by leaps and bounds," and "so, too, did conflicts among groups who used those resources." [1]

Thus, administration of the national forests within Region 1, as elsewhere, increasingly came to involve very diverse, geographically dispersed, and philosophically different individuals, groups, and interests. The old autonomy and independence of the ranger district, the forest, and the region became melded into a collectivist system of management that involved every tier of the Forest Service, along with Government agencies and private entities external to the Forest Service.

The management framework and the legislative authority for national forest management changed repeatedly during the environmentally conscious 1960's and on into the 1980's. Six major pieces of forest-related legislation passed Congress between 1960 and 1976, as many in a 15-year period as had been approved in the previous 70 years. These acts included:

Regulatory guidelines, court decisions, and additional legislative enactments affected both national forest management and the utilization of forest resources. In the 1970's alone, for example, Congress created 20 new Federal regulatory agencies—28 such agencies had administered the Nation's business before 1960. The Water Quality Improvement Act (1970), the Clean Air Act Amendments (1970), the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendment (1972), and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (1972), to mention only a few, directly affected forest management and planning, both through the auspices of the Environmental Protection Agency, created by Congress in 1970, and through the special-interest groups that utilized the courts, the legislation, and the National Environmental Policy Act. Concurrent with these legislative enactments, the character of the Forest Service, particularly in the representation of professions other than foresters, affected the administration and management of the national forests in the Northern Region.

The expanded cadre of users of national forest resources often interpreted new legislation in different ways, further compounding the growing difficulty of decisionmaking and policy implementation. Much of the new legislation, to be sure, was not radical, instead evolving naturally out of programs and policies of the past. Such was the case with the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960, for example. This act, which reaffirmed the concept of multiple use and sustained yield, derived in good measure from Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson's directive to the first Chief Forester, Gifford Pinchot, in February 1905:

In the administration of the forest reserves it must be clearly borne in mind that all land is to be devoted to the most productive use for the permanent good of the whole people and not for the temporary benefit of individuals or companies.

...You will see to it that the water, wood, and forage of the reserves are conserved and wisely used.

...Where conflicting interests must be reconciled, the question will always be decided from the standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run. [2]

The Northern Region accepted "multiple-use management of the National Forests to ensure a sustained production of outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, wildlife and fish." [3]

Multiple-Use Plans Replace Single-Use Plans

Up to the beginning of the 1960's, foresters prepared management plans for each of the major types of resources. Timber management planning was prominent. For instance, a timber management plan for the Bitterroot National Forest was approved in 1961 and amended in 1966. Lands in the forest were categorized as nonforested, noncommercial forest, and commercial forest. The timber management plan, therefore, recognized that forest uses included activities other than timber production. To reflect the multiple-use concept, the 1966 amendment specifically recognized employment of multiple-use plans in the working circles. [4]

The first multiple-use plans in the Northern Region were for ranger districts. Multiple-use plans for the national forests soon followed. The ranger district plans provided for broad zoning and included coordinating requirements needed to ensure compatible use of resources. The Hebgen Lake District on the Gallatin, for example, produced its 1964 plan with an introduction, a definition of management zones and the management situation within each zone, the principal forest uses, and the management decisions that would be required. A "special zone" on the Hebgen was the Madison River Canyon earthquake area. (In 1966 and 1969, the region issued guides to coordinate the plans for the ranger districts on each national forest, These guides identified seven major management zones: high area, general forest, lower slope-foothill, water influence, travel influence, riverbank, and special.) [5]

An article by Thomas Nelson in Forest Planning (1980) explained the process as follows:

The Ranger District multiple-use plans usually provided for broad zoning of National Forest land as the basis for further decisions. They included specific coordinating requirements considered necessary to ensure compatibility.

These multiple-use plans didn't identify resource development goals. Instead, they were set at the individual national forest level.

...Although multiple-use planning was headed in the right direction, NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] refined the process in three major ways. [6]

NEPA interpreted the ranger district's multiple-use plan as a land management unit plan. It required interdisciplinary interaction in the preparation of plans, and its enactment resulted in a "quantum jump in the intensity of public involvement" in forest management decisions. [7]

Published multiple-use forest plans developed over time. All national forests in Region 1 were to have the overview portion of their multiple-use plans completed by July 1, 1972. The 1968 program of work admonished that "there continue to be too many examples of poor multiple-use decisions, judgements, and execution." Special-interest groups were seizing upon these errors as "typical examples of Forest Service management," to such a degree, the report continued, "that the terms devastation and exploitation are being equated with multiple use." [8] Special-interest groups and the media, intentionally or otherwise, often distorted the multiple-use management that had long been a Forest Service policy.

The Wilderness Act of 1964

The Wilderness Act, first introduced by Senator Hubert Humphrey and eight cosponsors on June 7, 1956, but not approved by Congress until September 3, 1964, designated 54 wilderness areas containing 9.1 million acres and directed the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior to conduct 10-year reviews of other lands suitable for inclusion in wilderness designation. The work on the Wilderness Act occupied 9 years and involved 65 different bills, 18 congressional hearings, and thousands of pages of records, transcripts, and documents. [9]

Wilderness set-asides (first called primitive areas) and wilderness management by the Forest Service predated the Wilderness Act by four decades, as did concern for maintaining roadless tracts. For example, in 1938, Regional Forester Evan Kelley forwarded a list of roadless areas in the Northern Region to the Forest Service Chief. Kelley identified 538,000 roadless acres near established primitive areas, and recommended maintaining another 602,000 acres as roadless areas. He explained that the decision to build roads properly takes into account "many other kinds of land and resource service." [10]

In Montana, 1,983,997 acres of national forest were treated as wilderness areas or wild areas as of 1957, before passage of the Wilderness Act. Wilderness areas established under U-1 and U-2 regulations were instantly transformed into "wilderness" under the act. Studies, hearings, and recommendations for the transfer of primitive areas were to be made within 10 years. Some primitive areas, such as the Selway-Bitterroot, were transferred to wilderness very quickly. Public hearings were conducted on the proposal to classify the area as wilderness after passage of the Wilderness Act, and after those hearings the area was reclassified as the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area. [11]

The experience gained in the Selway-Bitterroot review process in the Northern Region, and similar situations in other parts of the country, prompted the adoption of a regular review and evaluation procedure described as RARE I—Roadless Area Review and Evaluation. According to Dennis Roth, former historian for the Forest Service, the Forest Service Manual in 1967 directed regional foresters to review and report on areas that might have wilderness potential by 1969. Dick Joy, a member of the Regional Office recreation staff who was on duty in Washington, outlined the need for an inventory of roadless areas, which were beginning to receive attention from backcountry users of the region's national forests. Associate Chief McGuire affirmed the need for such inventories. Between the fall of 1971 and the summer of 1972, the Forest Service inventoried and studied 1,449 roadless areas containing 55.9 million acres. [12]

The inventory, designed to improve the effectiveness of the Forest Service in its management of wilderness under the authority of the Wilderness Act, was viewed by wilderness preservationists outside of the Forest Service as a prelude to the Forest Service building roads into all roadless areas as a means to preserve the areas for multiple use, mostly timber growing and harvesting. These interests immediately began to pressure Congress to place much of the region's national forest land under wilderness status. A former forest supervisor from the region, Kenneth P. Norman, explained that "somebody in the Forest Service in the very early 1970's decided it would be useful to show on maps those areas of national forest land that had no roads." For those opposed to further development of the national forests, the inventoried areas became "designated roadless areas," or quasi-wilderness, thus adding a new category to an already complicated scheme of land-use planning. [13]

When the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was signed by President Richard M. Nixon on January 1, 1970, land-use planning and forest management took on radical new dimensions. The act created a Council on Environmental Quality, enunciated a statement of national policy for the protection of the environment, and directed all Federal agencies to implement protective measures under the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency. The act had broad and pervasive influences not anticipated at the time of its passage. [14] One of these has been to make the work of forest management and planning more cumbersome and subject to external review and revision.

S. T. Dana and S.K. Fairfax, in their study Forest and Range Policy, suggest that it has been particularly difficult for the Forest Service to work within the framework of NEPA. Given the traditionally decentralized management system of the Forest Service, actions, taken at the unit level are difficult to assess in the context of the region or the nation. [15] Other external legislation, or attempted legislation, contributed to internal management stresses within Region 1.

The growing concern for conservation and preservation of wilderness and forest resources confronted a rising "shortage" of marketable timber in the early 1970's indicated by sharply rising timber prices. Congress attempted to respond to this problem by introducing the Timber Supply Act, which would have enlarged the allowable harvest from Federal lands. This bill, and several related bills, failed to pass, but triggered tremendous debate and infighting and widened the apparent chasm between environmentalists and timber producers. Consideration of these measures also greatly enhanced the supply of information about the renewable natural resources of the national forest and other public lands. [16] Essentially external events such as these have an impact upon the decisionmaking processes within the Northern Region.

New Management Directions Within the Northern Region

The year 1971 was a year for "taking stock" in Region 1. Problems on the Bitterroot National Forest focused attention on proper responses from district, forest, and regional managers. Between January and March, Regional Forester Neal Rahm conducted six management direction seminars, in which he reviewed the natural of changing conditions, the acceleration of those changes, and how such changes might or should affect the organization. His major emphasis was that the Forest Service "must change to cope with the speed of change." This, Rahm said, involved two important skills:

One...is to be able to respond quickly on critical issues and the other is to plan ahead. We need people who fall in that critical 5 percent category—the people of the future, not the people of the present. [17]

The General Integrating Inspection (GII) of 1971 documented, perhaps for the first time, the full extent of changes affecting the Northern Region's forest management during the past decade. The report discussed critical issues in hardhitting fashion and identified timber harvesting, mineral extraction, and other development on the national forest lands as the major external issues. The Forest Service, the report observed, had lost credibility in varying degrees with some segments of the general public, and criticism of land management decisions had been increasing in frequency and in intensity. [18]

The inspector addressed the Bitterroot timber harvest situation, now laden with potential conflict and confrontation. They suggested that an opportunity to conduct harvest operations "carefully integrated with quality protection and management of other values" existed, and that managers could "improve public understanding of the silvicultural practices used or to be used" on the forest. The GII inspection also highlighted the human-interest aspects of the forests—recreation and the development and utilization of historic sites such as the Lewis and Clark route on the Clearwater and the Madison River earthquake area on the Gallatin, The region was encouraged to support use of backcountry areas where activities were less limited than in wilderness, and to expand public involvement in planning and development. [19]

Timber Management and Multiple-Use Planning

At the same time as the GII report was issued, John R. Milodragovich, Chief of the Timber Management Division, presented a detailed analysis of the status of Northern Region timber management practices. Milodragovich recognized the need for change within the region. He remarked that the Forest Service's "Framework for the Future" was fundamentally multiple-use management.

It is obvious the public is not satisfied with our land management. Perhaps almost as important, our own people in the Forest Service question the emphasis on some activities and the neglect of others. I believe we are finally facing up to the responsibilities and tremendous complexities of "land" management. [20]

Milodragovich went on to identify planning as the major problem facing the region.

In his report, Milodragovich recognized a structural weakness in the ability to plan across agencies. He quoted the 1970 Bitterroot task force forced evaluation regarding the slow pace of planing on that forest and explained that while the region could not tolerate allowable cuts that were incorrect, the current pace of completing only the one and one-half timber management inventories per year required to determine realistic annual cuts was simply too slow. Milodragovich lamented the lack of multi-disciplinary planning teams that might "reduce the possibility of overlooking any significant ecological or environmental consideration." He also noted several areas such as nutrient cycling, which required concentrated research effort. [21]

The regional forester's management direction for the Northern Region resulted in the coordinated planning exemplified in the program of work for each national forest. Each district within the forest prepared a plan of work for the fiscal year, these were consolidated into the forest's program of work. [22] However, the difficulties of effective planning remained a major concern throughout the 1970's.

The 1972 Supervisor-Staff Conference, held in Spokane, Washington, focused on planning as the region's major challenge—and opportunity—for the next two decades. Regional Forester Steve Yurich noted, however, the day-to-day burden of managing the forests, which utilized the full resources and personnel of the region, made long-range planning a slow and difficult process. He said, "I wish we could stop the clock for 2 years and be able to get on top of the multiple-use planning job and be able to identify our land capabilities." [23] He said, "somehow we will integrate management so that we can contribute to people's needs and still have harmony with environment." [24]

The Pace of Multiple-Use Planning Quickens

Multiple-use forest plans began to appear in at the latest preliminary stages in 1972. Supervisor Jack Large approved the first part of the Lolo National Forest multiple-use plan on May 31, 1972, and Regional Forester Steve Yurich approved it the following day. Copies of the plan were disseminated to the public on June 26. The plan described forest resources and assumptions about their future management, and it set forth management directives for coordinating resource utilization. Resource were categorized under soil, air, water, visual, recreation, range, timber, wildlife, fishery, wilderness, and minerals; the discussion concentrated on inventory problems and management. The Bitterroot forest plan, completed on August 14, and subsequent forest plans followed the same format. [25] The level of effort represented in the plans can best be seen by examining a representative planning unit within a forest plan.

The multiple-use plan for the Gold Creek Planning Unit, on the Missoula Ranger District, is a microcosm of the changes in the Forest Service process during this period. The Gold Greek unit comprises 17,332 acres of national forest land in seven management units, out of 78,415 acres of ownerships. The final environmental impact statement for the unit, which was, in effect, a revised multiple-use plan, was published in 1974. However, the process began in 1970 and 1971, when district multiple-use plans were revised to emphasize "delineations of management units and zones." In 1972, the whole system of multiple-use planning was reorganized, "to provide greater coordination at the forest level and more specific management guidance at the district level." This produced part II of the multiple-use plan for a national forest. The part II eventually superseded ranger district multiple-use plans, indicating, among other things, the greater emphasis on central planning at the forest headquarters level and a decline in the autonomy of the Ranger District. [26]

The Gold Greek Unit plan began by publishing a "notice of intent to plan" in the local newspaper on May 7, 1972. The announcement included an invitation to the public meeting to be held on May 8. Two announced field trips to the affected area, followed by another public meeting held on December 7, 1972, provided the input for the draft environmental statement, which was filed with the Council on Environmental Quality created under NEPA on December 11, 1973. Public notice that the draft environmental statement was available appeared locally on December 12, 1973, and in the Federal Register on December 17. The Lolo National Forest transmitted the final environmental statement to the Council on Environmental Quality on August 6, 1974. [27]

During the next few years, the region completed many of the environmental statements required for its various planning units by the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960.

The environmental statements for the two planning units of the Little Missouri National Grasslands, the Rollowing Prairie Planning Unit and the Badlands Planning Unit, were completed in 1975. The grassland units were distinct components of the Custer National Forest, offering open, undefined, and unrestricted landscapes; a unique history; and a land where ranching and dry-land farming were not just economic enterprises but a traditional way of life,. Here, the statement said, "a man can own and work his land, be his own boss, breathe fresh air, be free." Almost 700 individuals, 4 Government agencies (other than the Forest Service), 4 State or county authorities, and 10 private organizations—ranging from the Wilderness Society to Texaco, Inc.—testified in public hearings on the development of management plans for these grassland units. [28] Some 14 years had elapsed since the passage of the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act and the completion of multiple-use management plans. Not only did planning consume an enormous amount of time and human resources, but legislation and ruling issued after the planning began changed the rules and procedures for planning.

Planning on the Bitterroot National Forest after 1971 included considerable change in acres allocated to the timber production. By 1976, the Bitterroot had filed final environmental impact statements on 445,000 acres, had completed draft statements on 220,000 acres, and had drafts in progress for another 66,000 acres. Nearly 100,000 acres remained. All of this effort involved massive public participation. Following the Northern Region policy on clearcutting, the Bitterroot plans guaranteed that if irreconcilable conflicts were found to exist between the biological requirements of timber stands and the multiple-use needs of an area, no harvest would be made. The forest reallocated timber treatment allotments, reduced its saleable timber allocations, and curtailed planned road construction. [29]

Planning on the Beaverhead National Forest began somewhat differently in the early 1970's. In 1972, the forest published part I of its multiple-use plan, which was a general document printed in brochure format. Part II of the plan, published in final form in 1977 and forwarded to the Environmental Protection Agency on December 15, 1978, included two documents; a land management plan and a final environmental impact statement for the land management plan. The Beaverhead included 40 to 60 pages of plans for each of the planning units within the comprehensive land management plan. [30]

By the time the land management plan and the environmental impact statement were published, the planning rules had been changed under the provisions of the Resource Planning Act (1974) and the National Forest Management Act (1976), and the process had to began again.

The Resource Planning Act (1974)

The Resource Planning Act required considerable greater detail in management planning for national forest lands than did the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act or the National Environmental Policy Act. It was initiated by Senator Hubert Humphrey, passed by Congress on August 2, 1974, and signed by President Gerald Ford on August 17, 1974. The Forest Service responded to the act in a document entitled Alternative Goals for Six Resource Systems, released for public review on March 7, 1975. The six resource systems included outdoor recreation and wilderness, wildlife habitat, range forage, timber, land and water, and human and community development. The Forest Service then submitted two documents to Congress—Renewable Resource Assessment and Renewable Resource Program—along with a 129-page summary of the documents. The first document provided an analysis of the long-run supply and demand of renewable resources; the second established a program for Forest Service management of renewable resource, including cooperative forestry assistance for State governments with an invitation to submit written comments to the Forest Service Chief by October 15, 1975, and to attend briefing sessions and hearings scheduled at various locations through the country in September. [31]

The Final responses to the Resource Planning Act were sent to President Ford on December 31, 1975. The White House submitted them to Congress for approval, which passed on March 2, 1976. Follow-up assessment (631 pages) and program (537 pages) documents were submitted to Congress on June 19, 1980. [32] Congressional mandates, thus, radically altered the management of the national forest by the regions, and those mandates came with relentless regularity in the 1970's.

The National Forest Management Act of 1976

Sidney Weitzman, who published a study of a controversy over clearcutting on the Monogahela National Forest in West Virginia, believed that, if the Forest Service had implemented the 1970 Region 1 task force appraisal report on the Bitterroot, many conflicts between the Forest Service and special interests might have been avoided. Mandates approved by Congress also may have been muted. Unfortunately, Weitzman suggests, "the Forest Service and some other agencies in the natural resources field did not fully appreciate the depth and intensity of feeling—and the pressure that could be generated by these new interests." [33] The National Forest Management Act was a product of this rising public concern.

Senator Hubert Humphrey introduced the National Forest Management Act. Congress approved it expeditiously, and the bill because law with President Ford's signature on October 22, 1976. This act, according to the Forest Service, strengthened the Resource Planning Act. It provided new regulations and procedures respecting land management planning, timber management actions, and public participation in Forest Service decisionmaking. At least 80 percent of its provisions amended existing acts pertaining to national forest management. Unfortunately, the act was very long and complex, making delays and confusion in implementation, plus conflicts over interpretation, possible, if not likely. [34]

As a portent of things to come, Brock Evans of the Sierra Club indicated that the National Forest Management Act achieved 25 percent of the Sierra Club's long-range goals, and "for now, we are going to see what the Forest Service does with its regulations. If they have learned, we will not contest them for a while. If not, there are plenty of legal handles in the bill." [35] One of those "handles," in fact, became the basis for a complaint against national forest management in Texas the day after the new act was signed into law.

The Forest Service announced a schedule of public briefing sessions to be conducted as a prelude to the 6-month process of developing the rules and regulations that would be used to implement the National Forest Management Act. In December, the Forest Service issued on information report explaining procedures planned for implementing the act. A committee of scientists were named to "provide scientific and technical advice and counsel on proposed procedures to assure that an effective interdisciplinary approach is proposed and adopted." [36] Ten planning "actions" were to be followed:

1. Identification of issues, concerns, and opportunities

2. Development and establishment of planning criteria

3. Collection of data and information

4. Analysis of the management situation

5. Formulation of alternatives

6. Estimation of the effects of the alternatives

7. Evaluation of the alternatives

8. Selection of the preferred alternative

9. Implementation

10. Monitoring and evaluation.

Each management plan required two parts, an environmental impact study and a national forest plan. The process required a preliminary draft followed by the final plan. [37] Thus Region 1, as other Forest Service division, now had congressional directives to guide forest management. More would be forthcoming.

The Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which Congress approved almost concurrently with the National Forest Management Act, required that Forest Service activities relating to land acquisition, land exchanges, domestic livestock grazing, and rights-of-way be coordinated with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). [38] Whatever the respective legislation, wilderness concerns continued to preoccupy the public's attention and Forest Service management planning throughout the 1970's and 1980's.

RARE II: Wilderness Planning

About 15 million acres of national forest lands were actually designated as wilderness under the Wilderness Act of 1964. Another 70 million undeveloped acres of national forest land remained to be considered for wilderness classification. M. Rupert Cutler, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, proposed guidelines for wilderness classification—"Roadless Area Review and Evaluation" (RARE II).

Cutler believed that it was imperative that a quality National Wilderness Preservation System be completed and that early determination be made as to which roadless areas should no longer be considered for wilderness.

Roadless or undeveloped areas in Montana totaled 5,762,095 gross acre (5,471,380 net), inventoried by forest area code, and area name. The RARE II environmental impact statement evaluated the probable impact of each wilderness alternative on timber harvest, recreation, wildlife, and grazing. [39]

Under the direction of Culter, the RARE II executive group in the Chief's office supervised the completion of RARE II studies for the entire Forest Service organization, and those studies were completed by the announced deadline. As a result, President Jimmy Carter transmitted the completed studies to Congress as the format for the wilderness initiatives on April 16, 1979. The studies did not, by any means, fully resolve the conflict over wilderness designation, but they did enable a better or more enlightened look at areas that would be added to those previously designated as wilderness. Congressman John H. Seiberling, chairman of the Subcommittee on Public Lands and National Parks, commented in May 1983 that RARE II seemed to be capable of resolving the remaining issues over wilderness designation. [40] Thus, a management mandate established in 1964 began to reach some resolution two decades later.

RARE II ended on January 27, 1983. At that time, National Forest Management Act regulations were revised to include wilderness evaluations as a part of the regular national forest planning process. Congressional action on wilderness/nonwilderness proposals on a State-by State basis became the standard procedure for resolution of wilderness issues. Thus, within a period of two decades, procedures relating to format management within the Northern Region, as elsewhere, had become mandated by congressional authority, in what was at least for a time a bewildering array of legislation.

Moreover, the decisionmaking authority had in many respects been removed from the national forest to the region, and then from the region to the Chief's Office and, more accurately, directly to the halls of Congress. How much timber to be cut, where roads should be built or not built, and where wilderness should be preserved or not had become the direct concern of Congress and of myriad interest groups far beyond the compass of the Northern Region. This did not mean that the Northern Region had abdicated its role in the management of forest resources, but that the region must involve diverse, often external groups—ranging from local grazing or preservation associations, to State and national groups (including other Government agencies), to corporations and Congress—in the planning and decisionmaking process.

Reference Notes

1. Dennis C. LeMaster, Decade of Change: The Remaking of Forest Statutory Authority During the 1970's (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984), pp. 3-4.

2. USDA Forest Service, Northern Region, A Mandate: Use Land Management (Missoula, MT: 1967), n.p. [2].

3. Ibid,; Act of June 12, 1960; P.L. 86-517, 74 Stat 215; U.S.C. 528 (note): 528-531; LeMaster, Decade of Change, p. 6.

4. USDA Forest Service, Northern Region, Bitterroot National Forest, Timber Management Plan, Bitterroot Working Circle, Bitterroot National, Region), Montana—1961. (Hamilton, MT: 1962), 1-151; USDA Forest Service, Northern Region Bitterroot National Forest, Amended Timber Management Plan, Bitterroot Working Circle, Bitterroot National Forest, Montana-Idaho. F.Y. 1966-F.Y. 1972 (Hamilton, MT: 1965), pp. 1-39, appendix.

5. USDA Forest Service, Northern Region. A Mandate: Multiple Use Land Management (Missoula, MT: 1967), n.p., illus.; USDA Forest Service, Northern Region, Gallatin National Forest, Hebgen Lake Ranger District, Multiple Use Management Plan, Hebgen Lake Ranger District, Gallatin National Forest (West Yellowstone, MT; 1964), n.p.

6. Thomas C. Nelson, "The Evolution of National Forest Planning," Forest Planning 1 (April 1980): 13-14.

7. Ibid.

8. USDA Forest Service, Northern Region, "F.Y. 1968 Program of Work," Missoula, MT; 967, pp. 1-68.

9. Samuel Trask Dana and Sally K. Fairfax, Forest and Range Policy: Its Development in the United States, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1980), pp. 217-218.

10. Evan W. Keley, Letter to Chief, Related to Roadless Areas of the Northern Region, Missoula, MT. February 9, 1938, 5 pp., Federal Records Center, Seattle, WA, 095-75A1134.

11. Dana and Fairfax, Forest and Range Policy, pp. 218-222.

12. Dennis M. Roth, The Wilderness Movement and the National Forests (College Station, TX: Intaglio Press, 1988), 37-45.

13. Kenneth P. Norman, Redding, CA (formerly supervisor in Region 1) to Robert D. Baker, May 5, 1988, Intaglio Papers, University of Montana Archives.

14. LeMaster, Decade of Change, p. 10.

15. Dana and Fairfax, Forest and Range Policy, pp. 308-309.

16. Many of these are outlined in LeMaster, Decade of Change, p. 33.

17. Neal Rahm, "Management Direction Seminars," Missoula, MT. 1971. pp 1-8, Federal Records Center, Seattle, WA, 095-75A109.

18. USDA Forest Service, "Report of General Integrating Inspection: A Future Framework for R-1, R-4, Intermountain Station, June-August 1971," [Washington, D.C.]: April 1972, pp. 1-110, Federal Records Center, Seattle, WA, 095-75A109.

19. Ibid.

20. John R. Milodragovich, Chief, Division of Timber Management, "Timber Program and Other Demands on Forested Land," Missoula, MT. June 25, 1971. pp. 1-20, appendices

21. Ibid., p. 16.

22. "Nez Perce National Forest Program of Work—FY 1972," n.p., April 1, 1971, pp. 1-38, Federal Records Center, Seattle, WA, 095-76A098.

23. "Summary of Supervisor-Staff Conference, February 22-25, 1972," n.p., March 3, 1972, pp. 1-10, Federal Records Center, Seattle, WA 095-76A139.

24. Ibid.

25. USDA Forest Service, Northern Region, Lolo National Forest, Multiple Use Plan, Part I, Lolo National Forest, Missoula, MT; 19782, pp. 1-102; Jack Large, Forest Supervisor, Letter to Forest Users, Missoula, MT. Lolo National Forest, June 26, 1972. Federal Records Center, Seattle, WA, 095-76A139; USDA Forest Service, Northern Region, Bitterroot National Forest, Bitterroot National Forest, Multiple Use Plan, Part I, Missoula, MT. 1972, pp. 1-53, historic files, Bitterroot National Forest

26. USDA Forest Service, Northern Region, Lolo National Forest, Missoula Ranger District, Environmental Statement, Multiple Use Plan, Gold Creek Planning Unit, Missoula, MT: [USDA-FS-FES-(Adm)74-49] 1974, pp. 1-162, appendix.

27. Ibid.

28. USDA Forest Service, Northern Region, Custer National Forest, Little Missoula National Grasslands, Management Plan: Rolling Prairie Planning Unit, Billings, MT: 1975, pp. ii, 2, historic files, Custer National Forest.

29. LeMaster, Decade of Change, pp. 35, 36-49, 135; W. Beaufait and R. Felizer, "Status Report on the Bitterroot National Forest—1976," n.p., n.d., pp. 1-14, historic files, Bitterroot National Forest; USDA Forest Service, "Spectrum of Forest, Rangelands Management Goals Described," News: U.S. Department of Agriculture (March 7, 1975), pp. 1-2, and "Public Asked to Comment on Future Forest Management," pp. 1-2.

30. USDA Forest Service, Northern Region. Beaverhead National Forest, Land Management Plan, Dillon, MT: [FES (Adm)77-5] 1977, pp. 1-377; Beaverhead National Forest, Land Management Plan, Final Environmental Statement, Dillion, MT: [FES—Adm)77-5] 1977, pp. 1-152, appendix, Intaglio Collection, University of Montana Archives, Missoula, MT.

31. LeMaster, Decade of Change, pp. 138, 143. Note: the author attended a briefing session on September 9, in Shreveport, Louisiana, and a public hearing on September 17 in Houston.

32. Ibid., pp. 55-56.

33. Sidney Weitzman, Lessons from the Monongahela Experience, n.p., 1977, pp. 1-62.

34. Ibid., p. 36; LeMaster, Decade of Change, p. 80; Ralph D. Hodges, Jr., National Forest Products Association, to Robert D. Baker, October 13, 1976; USDA Forest Service, The National Forest Management Act of 1976 (Washington, D.C.: Current Information Report No. 16. 1976), pp. 1-28, and see pp. 1-2; Western Timber Association, "Strengths and Weaknesses of the National Forest Management Act of 1976." n.p., Mimeo No. 72782, November 2, 1976. pp. 1-9, Robert D. Baker personal papers, College Station, TX; J. E. DeStelguer, "Major Provisions of the National Forest Management Act of 1976," pp. 1-17, typescript paper for Agricultural Economics, 604, Texas A&M University, Robert D. Baker, personal papers, College Station, TX.

35. deSteiguer, "Major Provisions of the National Forest Management Act of 1976." pp. 15-16, Robert D. Baker, personal papers, College Station, TX.

36. USDA Forest Service, The National Forest Management Act of 1976, pp. 1-28; LeMaster, Decade of Change, p. 143.

37. Federal Register, September 30, 1982, pp. 43026-43052.

38. Missing note. LeMaster, Decade of Change, p. 80.

39. USDA Forest Service, Northern Region, Montana Supplement of Draft Environmental Statement Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1978), pp. A1-A4.

40. Karr, "Forests for the People," pp. 133-34, 148-49, 151; M. Rupert Cutler, "A Forester is a Citizen, Too," Remarks to the Washington Section, Society of American Foresters, March 14, 1978. USDA Release, 752-78, March 14, 1978. pp 1-8; USDA Forest Service, Press Release, "National Forest Roadless Areas Subject to Reevaluation," February 1, 1983; U.S. Congress, 1st Sess., House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Subcommittee on Public Lands and National Parks, Hearings, Additions to the National Wilderness Preservation System (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1983), in Part IV, p. 28.