Managing Multiple Uses on National Forests, 1905-1995 A 90-year Learning Experience and It Isn't Finished Yet

Once in a while, a truly challenging book comes along. This is one! Dr. John Fedkiw unfolds a story that has not been told this way or this thoroughly before. It is the story of how the dedicated conservationists of the Forest Service have managed the public lands, waters, and resources of the United States and served the public trust for over 90 years.

This story is not an easy one to tell. Each generation has had different expectations for the use and enjoyment of the national forests and grasslands and for the other programs of the Forest Service.

Society has sent — and continues to send — the Forest Service mixed signals over its priorities. Throughout its history, the Forest Service has been buffeted by political, factional, and intergenerational disputes. Reflecting society's strife, each Administration and Congress has set different, sometimes conflicting, priorities. As a result, there has never been quite enough money, people, or time available to the Forest Service to do the impossible — accomplishing everything that society has asked.

Nevertheless, Forest Service management of multiple uses on national forests has been resourceful in adapting to changes in society's expectations and to new knowledge and technology and in implementing productivity improvements to overcome limitations of budgets.

Managing multiple uses on national forests has always included many aspects of the ecological approach to resource management — an approach that the Forest Service explicitly adopted in 1992. We are well on a pathway to the holistic ecological approach to managing multiple uses on national forests. We are again "Breaking New Ground" and, together with the American people, extending the learning experience that has always been a part of the use and management of the National Forest System lands and resources.

What emerges from this book is an understanding that the Forest Service has always found a way to obey the law, care for the land, and serve people, giving society most of what it wanted with extraordinary efficiency. Forest Service employees, agency partners, and everyone who cares about this Nation's natural treasures owe Dr. Fedkiw their thanks.

Jack Ward Thomas
Chief, USDA Forest Service, 1993-1996