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'The USDA Forest Service' is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's national forests and national grasslands. In addition, the Research and Development branch of the Forest Service carries out research relevant to forest ecosystems and other natural resources.

Contents

History

Activities

Controversies

See also

References

External links

History

In 1876, Congress created the office of Special Agent in the Department of Agriculture to assess the state of the forests in the United States. Franklin B. Hough was appointed. In 1881, the office was expanded into the newly-formed 'Division of Forestry'. The Forest Reserve Act of 1891 authorized withdrawing land from the public domain as "forest reserves," managed by the Department of the Interior. In 1901, the Division of Forestry was renamed the 'Bureau of Forestry'. The Transfer Act of 1905 transferred the management of forest reserves from the General Land Office of the Interior Department to the Bureau of Forestry, henceforth known as the USDA 'Forest Service'.
Other significant legislation includes: the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act, P.L. 86-517; the National Forest Management Act, P.L. 94-588; the National Environmental Policy Act, P.L. 91-190; the Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act, P.L. 95-313; the Forest and Rangelands Renewable Resources Planning Act, P.L. 95-307; and the National Forest Management Act of 1976.

Activities

Across the whole United States, there are 155 national forests, organized into ranger districts employing district rangers and other personnel. The districts construct and maintain trails, operate campgrounds, regulate grazing, patrol wilderness areas, protect culturally significant heritage sites, and manage vegetation and wildlife habitat.
The Forest Service also has seven Regional Research Stations, including the International Institute of Tropical Forestry and Forest Products Laboratory, that study the ecosystems of the National Forests among other things. The Forest Service also provides funding and technical assistance to non-federal land owners through a branch called State and Private Forestry.
Although a large volume of timber is logged every year, not all National Forests are entirely forested. There are tidewater glaciers in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska and ski areas such as Alta, Utah in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. In addition, the Forest Service is responsible for managing National Grasslands in the midwest. Furthermore, areas designated as Wilderness, which can so created by an act of Congress, prohibit logging, mining, road and building construction and land leases for purposes of farming and or livestock grazing.

In order to help prevent forest fires, the Forest Service and the Wartime Advertising Council started to release fire education posters featuring a Black Bear on August 9, 1944. The poster campaign was a success and the Black Bear would later be named "Smokey Bear" who for decades was the "spokesbear" for the Forest Service. Unfortunately, the ensuing decades of fire suppression unintentionally caused a buildup of fuels that replaced the historically natural fire regime of slow-burning, relatively cool brush fires with fast-burning, relatively hot wildfires in forest lands across the nation, particularly the West.

Controversies

The history of the Forest Service has been fraught with controversy, as various interests and national values have grappled with the appropriate management of the many resources for the "greatest good". These values and resources include grazing, timber, mining, recreation, and wildlife habitat. Because of continuing development elsewhere, the large size of National Forests have made them de facto wildlife reserves for a number of rare and common species. In recent decades, the importance of mature forest for the spotted owl and a number of other species led to great changes in timber harvest levels.
Another controversial issue is the policy on road building within the National Forests. In 1999 President Clinton ordered a temporary moratorium on new road construction in the National Forests to "assess their ecological, economic, and social values and to evaluate long-term options for their management." [1] Five and half years later the Bush administration replaced this with a system where each state could petition the Forest Service to open forests in their territory to road building.

See also

★ List of U.S. National Forests

★ United States Chief Foresters

References

★ Official website

External links

★ USDA Forest Service

★ U.S. Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory

★ USDA Forest Service Research Publications

★ USDA State & Private Forestry, Northeastern Area

★ Forest Service Meeting Notices and Rule Changes from The Federal Register RSS Feed