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'Bernard Eduard Fernow' (1851 – 1923) was the chief forester of the USDA in the late 1800s. He believed that forests were part of the "great economy of nature". Preceded Gifford Pinchot as the head of the Division of Forestry (predecessor to the United States Forest Service), where Fernow's chief policy goals were the establishment of a national forest system and introduction of scientific forest management. He produced many scientific reports while working toward the creation of national forests to protect watersheds. They were established in 1891 but placed under the control of the Department of Interior's General Land Office. He then labored in vain for their transfer from the GLO to his office in the Department of Agriculture.
After twelve years as Chief Forester, in 1898, Fernow resigned out of frustration to become the first dean of the New York State College of Forestry at Cornell. The program was the first four-year forestry school in the United States. When the college forest ran afoul of its rich neighbors in the Adirondacks, the state government cut off operating funds in 1903, effectively closing the school. In 1907, Fernow became the founding Dean of the University of Toronto's Faculty of Forestry, Canada's first university school devoted to forest science. He continued as editor of the ''Journal of Forestry''[1], which he had started at Cornell in 1900, until 1919. His reputation and legacy have suffered because of the success and self-promotional efforts of Gifford Pinchot and others at Fernow's expense.

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★ University of Toronto Faculty of Forestry