From the Sierra Club Federal Forests Forum. As I recall from Curt Meine's
fine biography of Iowan Aldo Leopold, it was Leopold who wrote the National
Forest use book mentioned here.
Tom Mathews
[Note the supportive quotes by Gifford Pinchot III in the story below
regarding the Gifford Pinchot National Forest Rededication event held
yesterday near Packwood, WA. Following this ceremony, GP3 went to the
Watch Mountain tree-sit and climbed 160 feet up into the canopy of the
old-growth forest to the platform which has been occupied by
environmental activists for the last two months. A coalition of 64
environment and community groups oppose the trade of key old-growth and
endangered species habitat in the GP National Forest. The parcels are
located at Watch Mtn and Fossil Creek (near Mt. St. Helens National
Monument).]
http://www.chronline.com/news/news1.shtml
[PHOTO CAPTION] Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck speaks Wednesday
during the Gifford Pinchot National Forest rededication ceremony at La
Wis Wis Campground east of Packwood..
Rededication honors Pinchot achievements
By Cap Pattison
PACKWOOD - Wednesday, an event was repeated that first occurred one month
short of 50 years ago.
On Oct. 15, 1949, more than 400 people gathered at La Wis Wis Campground
north of Packwood to formally change the name of the Columbia National
Forest to the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.
Wednesday, a like number of people, including U.S. Forest Service Chief
Mike Dombeck and Gifford Pinchot III, rededicated the forest to honor the
man who created the Forest Service in 1905, and who served as its first
chief.
"I think of Gifford Pinchot, and some words come to mind," Dombeck told
the crowd. "Words like visionary, words like missionary, words like
courage."
It was Pinchot, Dombeck said, who first brought professional,
science-based forest management to the United States.
"And then he had to sell it," he added. "We today enjoy the legacy of
that vision."
Foresters continue to base management decisions on the best science
available, Dombeck said, and just as it was with Pinchot, controversy
rages.
"We realize there always has been debate with natural resource
management, and there always will be, and that's OK," he stated. "It's
because people care."
Gifford Pinchot III, grandson of the nation's most famous forester, said
the Forest Service has changed a lot in the last 50 years.
In 1949, "the Forest Service was the most respected agency in the federal
government," Pinchot said.
"Fifty years later, the Forest Service is under some stress, even in some
cases under attack," Pinchot asserted.
What has changed, he said, is the value of national forests to the public.
"It isn't just about timber anymore, which it seemed to be for awhile in
the '80s," Pinchot stated. "Some of the old values are coming back, (such
as) water (quality), recreation, habitat, (and) biodiversity."
Forest management also has become far more complex, he said.
"Back in the old days, a forest ranger carried in his shirt pocket a
'use' book, which contained everything he needed to know in the way of
regulations and principles to manage the forest," Pinchot said, to much
laughter.
Today's forester needs a small library to house all the applicable
regulations, Pinchot related. He added the regulations are, in many
cases, contradictory.
But Pinchot said he remains optimistic about the future of the Forest
Service, because in Dombeck, "we've got a great chief."
Also, he cited the current tree sit-in protest on Watch Mountain north of
Randle (see related story) as representing a healthy trend.
Pinchot called it a "three-way collaboration," because the Forest Service
issued a permit for the protest, and Randle community members are
supporting the tree sitters.
"We have the Forest Service, the logging community, and the
environmentalists all working together just a few miles down the road
from here, and this sort of thing is beginning to go on everywhere you
look," Pinchot said.
"It's very exciting, because you cannot resolve great dilemmas in
general, you can only resolve them in the specific," he concluded.
Master of ceremonies for Wednesday's rededication was Forest Service
archaeologist Rick McClure, who wore a replica 1905 Forest Service
uniform, including brown wool pants and dark green wool jacket, boots
laced up nearly to the knees, and wide-brimmed Forest Service hat.
"It was Pinchot who, in 1897, urged the president to set aside this area,
basically from Mount Rainier all the way south to the Columbia River, as
a forest reserve," McClure told the crowd.
Also speaking Wednesday were Cowlitz Valley District Ranger Harry Cody;
Linda Goodman, speaking on behalf of acting Regional Forester Nancy
Graybeal; former Randle District Ranger Harold "Chris" Chriswell; Society
of American Foresters President James Coufal; Lewis County Commissioner
Dennis Hadaller; and Gifford Pinchot National Forest Supervisor Claire
Lavendel.
"Today we are rededicating a forest I believe Gifford Pinchot would have
been proud to have as his namesake," Goodman said. "I believe this forest
exemplifies the vision Gifford Pinchot had when he fought so hard to
establish forest reserves, back in 1891."
Chriswell, who was district ranger in 1949, said his father gave him
Pinchot's book "The Primer of Forestry" when he was a teen-ager in 1925.
"That (book) directed me into professional forestry, and a career in the
Forest Service," he said.
Coufal, who is a professor of forestry at State University of New York in
Syracuse, said trees may come and go, "but the forest goes on forever."
"And as stewards we come and go," Coufal said, "but we hope that
stewardship goes on forever."
Hadaller, as a lifelong resident of Lewis County, said he grew up
enjoying and working in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, and now as a
county commissioner, he appreciates how much income the forest brings to
the county.
Lavendel concluded the speeches by introducing "the next generation,"
four youths from a junior high school in Portland who have expressed an
interest in forestry.
---
Cap Pattison is The Chronicle's East Lewis County correspondent. He can
be reached by e-mail at [log in to unmask] or by calling 497-7177.
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