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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- To get off the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message to: [log in to unmask]