One of the original reasons for The Smokey Wire was to help students. So a student asked these questions, and I’ll put them out to the The Smokey Wire community.
– Do you have any book recommendations that relate to FS culture, planning, or policy? I am currently reading The Bitterroot and Mr. Brandborg.– Do you know of any good resources for looking into graduate programs, specifically in forestry/ land use planning fields?
Of course, I have to put in a plug here for Steve Wilent’s 193 Million Acres, with chapters by yours truly and other TSW contributors. Steve, maybe you have a list of chapters and authors for that book, as well as thoughts on other books?
Also, I think that professional societies such as SAF might play some kind of role with resources for graduate programs, but don’t know for sure.
The Lochsa Story – Bud Moore
I’ll suggest some older but still useful titles:
The U.S. Forest Service: A Centennial History, Revised Edition
by Harold K. Steen | Mar 1, 2004 – ISBN-13: 978-0295983738
Jack Ward Thomas: The Journals of a Forest Service Chief
by Harold Steen | Apr 1, 2004 – ISBN-10: 0295983981
Charles F. Wilkinson and H. Michael Anderson, Land and Resource Planning in the National Forests, 64 Or. L. Rev. 1 (1985), available at https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/articles/1038.
This last title is the single best resource I’ve found on the legal history and operation of land management planning. Because it was published before the Forest Service completed most of the first generation of LRMPs, some of the information is severely outdated. But this is no better resource (that I’m aware of) for understanding forest planning theory and how the legislation underpinning it (NFMA) came about.
I liked JWT’s journal, and I am a big fan of JWT- but as I recall the only woman that showed up in it was Katie McGinty. If someone reads it and they find any FS women mentioned, let me know.
Conspiracy of Optimism, Paul Hirt
Here’s the table of contents for 193 Million Acres:
Contents
Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Contributors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xvii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxi
SECTION 1: Proud Legacy, Uncertain Future
The Future of the National Forests: Who Will Answer an Uncertain Trumpet?
Jack Ward Thomas (posthumous) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
193 Million Acres: In Search of a Political Base
Keith A. Argow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
The US Forest Service: Headed for Extinction or Revitalization?
Bruce Courtright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Crafting a New Forest Service and Unwinding the Forest Health Crisis in
the Western United States
Jim Petersen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
A Tale of Two Forest Services and Hope for a Third
Tom L. Thompson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
SECTION 2: Fire and Fire Management
A Failure of Imagination: Why We Need a Commission to Take Action on
Wildfire
Dale N. Bosworth and Jerry T. Williams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Forestry and US Forest Service Fire Management: Moving beyond
Conventional Practices
Philip N. Omi, Brandon M. Collins, and Scott L. Stephens. . . . . . . . 105
Restoring Fire as a Landscape Conservation Tool: Nontraditional
Thoughts for a Traditional Organization
Michael T. Rains and Tom Harbour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
From Timber Service to Fire Service: The Evolution of a Land
Management Agency
Andy Stahl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
SECTION 3: Leadership and Management Challenges
Cooperative Federalism, Serving the Public Interest: A Policy Analysis of
How the States Can Engage Local Stakeholders and Federal Land
Managers to Improve the Management of the National Forests
Tom Schultz, Holly Fretwell, Dennis Becker, and Kelly Williams . . . . 177
The Forest Service Ranger: Beloved Icon or Pathway to Compliance?
Cindy C. Chojnacky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Changing Gospels: Defining Efficiency and Effectiveness for the National
Forests
Lloyd C. Irland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Changing the National Forests: Three Proposals—Timber Program Self-
Financing, Featured-Use Management, and Community-Support Forests
W.V. (Mac) McConnell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Integrated Renewable Energy from National Forests
W.V. (Mac) McConnell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
Economics and Forest Restoration
Dennis L. Murphy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Reinventing US Forest Service Research & Development
Carlton Owen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
An Agency to Match the Mountains: A Proposal for a US Forest Service
Academy to Prepare Entering Professional and Technical Personnel
to Serve Effectively as Forest Officers in a Structurally and Culturally
Transformed Forest Service
Lyle Laverty, Rich Stem, Roger Deaver, and Les Joslin . . . . . . . . . . 363
Implementing Sustainable Recreation on the National Forest System:
Aligning the Reality and Promise
Steven Selin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Wild and Free: Diverse Dispersed Recreation as the Forest Service’s Main
Mission
Sharon Friedman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
Millennial Employees and Rural Places: A Millennial Forester’s Thoughts
about Increasing Young Employee Recruitment and Retention in the
National Forest System
Don Radcliffe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
SECTION 4: The Legal and Regulatory Framework
How Collaboration Can Help Resolve Process Predicament on National
Forests: Examples from Idaho
Rick Tholen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
Collaboration: A Work in Progress
Duane Vaagen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
Lessons from Groups that Litigate Logging
Douglas Bevington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
The 2012 Planning Rule and Ecological Integrity: Maintaining and
Restoring the National Forests of the Douglas-fir Region
Jerry F. Franklin and K. Norman Johnson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487
Improving Implementation of the Endangered Species Act: A Case Study
of the Northwest Forest Plan and Spotted Owl Conservation
Stephen P. Mealey, Jack Ward Thomas (posthumous),
Gary J. Roloff, and Jay O’Laughlin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523
SECTION 5: Dealing with Discrimination and Sexual Harassment
The Forest Service Faces a Familiar Call for Reform
James G. Lewis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
The Highest Standard of Conduct
Steve Wilent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579
Honor and Integrity: Diversity through Leadership
Andrea Watts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583
Moving beyond Forestry as a Monoculture
Steve Wilent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587
Women of Wildfire: Revolution, Superheroes, and the Case for Diversity
in Fire Management
Allie Weill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591
SECTION 6: Eyes on the Future
Future Imperfect: The Forest Service and Federal Land Management in a
Climate-Charged Environment
Char Miller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601
Anatomy of an Enduring yet Evolving Mission
Al Sample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633
About the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .637
Wow, it’s amazing to see all those diverse folks lined up in one place!
I wish SAF had put some effort into marketing the book.
I took a class in “writing and selling a book” and they said basically “nowadays expect to do your own marketing.” This sounded like a lot of work, so I gave up. I think there are some career benefits to publishing scholarly books if you’re in certain academic fields, and no one really cares if they don’t sell. Well maybe university presses do, but.. And some of these are really good, but too expensive for the people interested to buy, so if they don’t have access to a university library, aren’t really accessible to the public.
But I agree with you that many people don’t know about the book and it wasn’t marketed.
Roger Sedjo’s 2000 book, A Vision for the US Forest Service: Goals for Its Next Century (published by Resources for the Future)
Randal O’Toole’s “Reforming the Forest Service,” while dated in its timber analysis, is still spot-on when it comes to understanding the degree to which budget maximizing motivates the FS bureaucracy. Just substitute “fire” for “timber.”
“The American People & The National Forests” by Samuel P. Hays. (2009)
This isn’t a book but may also be helpful by my RPA buddy Terry Tipple and Doug Wellman..
“Herbert Kaufman’s Forest Ranger Thirty Years Later: From Simplicity and Homogeneity to Complexity and Diversity” https://www.jstor.org/stable/976411
“Forests and Men: A Veteran Forest Leader Tells the Story of the Last Fifty Years of American Forestry,” William B. Greeley, 1951. Greeley was “one of Gifford Pinchot’s young men” putting the Forest Service together. He became Chief in 1920. https://foresthistory.org/research-explore/us-forest-service-history/people/chiefs/william-b-greeley-1879-1955/
“The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt & the Fire That Saved America,” Timothy Egan, 2009. Covers much of the same ground as Forests and Men.
Both are very well written (and/or edited!).
Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism, by Char Miller
https://islandpress.org/books/gifford-pinchot-and-making-modern-environmentalism
America’s Great National Forests, Wildernesses, and Grasslands, also by Char Miller
https://www.amazon.com/Americas-National-Forests-Wildernesses-Grasslands/dp/0847849155
Black Woman in Green: Gloria Brown and the Unmarked Trail to Forest Service Leadership, by Gloria Brown and Donna Sinclair
https://osupress.oregonstate.edu/book/black-woman-in-green
Thanks Kelly: Sadly, Gloria Brown just died last September, something I just learned yesterday. There is a live presentation of her life and career this evening at 6:30 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwHNDtnWd4M
I was an OTA (“older than average”) forestry student at Oregon State University in the 1990s and got to know her fairly well — in large part due to her partnership with Portland bookstore owner, Phil Wikelund, who was a Reed College student that I knew in the 1960s — he maintained a small communal household that I shared as a student at Portland State University. Lots of interesting history involving Alan Ginsburg, San Francisco hippies, horse meat, Reedies, and recreational experimentation at that time.
I also met with Gloria and testified at at least one public hearing she chaired as Supervisor of the Siuslaw NF after she took that job. I just learned of her book about a week ago and ordered a copy through Amazon that should be here any day. The promo said she lived in Lake Oswego and I saw she had a Facebook page, so I made a Friend request. Yesterday, the Request was accepted and then I learned that she had died last September and that Phil was still maintaining their page. Very sad and unexpected, and looking forward to reading her story and reconnecting with Phil.
I’m so sorry to hear this. I worked with Gloria when she was on the Gifford Pinchot.
I would like to recommend Jim’s excellent (2015) book: “Toward a Natural Forest: The Forest Service in Transition (A Memoir).”
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0870718134/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1