By Brandt Mannchen 

The U.S. Forest Service (FS), in the Department of Agriculture, has always been a tough nut for advocates, activists, and environmentalists to crack.  It has a lot of nice people, has a “Misson” to, “Sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands for present and future generations, and encapsulates this in its “Motto”, “Caring for the Land and Serving People”.

However, behind the slogan, “Multiple Use”, the FS has always, because it’s run by foresters, had a “utilitarian” mode of direction.  Foresters are taught this, that is what they believe, and how they act.

This generally means that there is a mindset that the FS must manage, manipulate, and maneuver landscapes, ecosystems, environments, and forests to produce what they want.  What they want is more timber (wood via logged trees), oil/gas and other minerals, and grazing animals.  This occurs to the detriment of the public’s natural resources with more logging, burning, mulching, grazing, drilling, digging, and leasing of our public natural heritage and legacy.

All of this is with the intent to force as much money-making activity as can be produced from our public lands while retaining a semblance of care for the wild, wilderness, rivers and streams, wildlife, endangered species, water, air, soil, and other public natural resources.

Now, with President Trump, this FS “utilitarian” direction is increased several hundred percent.  It’s now to the point where natural resources are denigrated, degraded, and destroyed to make money for those who use government resources, our resources, from, “The People’s Forest”, for their own profit and enrichment.

This is done via public relations (PR) which makes degradation of the public’s natural resources sound like a benefit. President Trump and the FS now call their damaging actions, “Active Forest Management”.

They use words like “modernizing processes”, “building capacity”, “streamlining compliance”, and “strengthening partnerships” to make this degradation sound okay.  They state, “These actions will deliver greater value to the public, protect natural resources, and ensure America’s forests remain resilient and productive for present and future generations.”  Don’t you believe it.

Sounds good, doesn’t it.  But what Trump and the FS don’t tell you is that “Active Forest Management” locks the public out of meaningful participation.  This means the voice of public values, benefits, and a reduction in environmental impacts is silenced or turned way down.

These “Active Forest Management” elements reduce the public’s ability to steward, direct, and have a say in the 193-million-acre National Forest System they own.  This is critical because the public owns federal public lands, owns the federal government, and employs all who work in the FS to protect and husband these public landscapes.  Instead, President Trump and the FS are:

1. Deregulating what the FS, its users, and contractors do to protect our forests and other ecosystems.

2. Eliminating from the public its right to participate, collaborate, and shape the future of its forests.

3. Firing and reducing the number of people in the FS who protect public values and benefits.

4. Defunding the FS so that it can’t properly monitor and protect the public’s natural resources.

5. Privatizing the public’s natural resources so that wealthy and powerful commercial interests and motivations from the greedy who want public benefits take away natural resources at bargain basement prices and remove as much as “this old Earth” as it can give.

6. Miniaturizing, diminishing, and reducing the type, age, and number of forest habitats and living resources (birds, mammals, vegetation, etc.) so they’ll never reach old growth, mature, or stable ecosystem existence, evolution, or function. 

This plan sterilizes, bankrupts, and desolates public lands, forests, landscapes, and other natural resources.  It’s happening right now with increasing rapidity and impact.

What are you going to do?  “Raise Hell”, like “Mother Jones” did in the early 1900’s?  I think so!

Don’t look for beauty to win over greed and selfishness. We are “on the point” and must “care” and actively “resist” the destruction and diminishment of our public lands and democratic institutions.  Do it now, do it relentlessly, and do it completely.