Search

When the Organic Act was passed in 1897, mandating the protection of timber and water resources for forest reserves, it remained the only significant legislation concerning national forest management for sixty-three years. Despite the constraints imposed by the act, the Forest Service did not restrict national forest-management practices to timber and water; range, wildlife, recreation, and minerals also were considered viable uses. Although improvements in timber growing and logging methods had emerged, national forest management before World War II was oriented toward fire protection for the maintenance of forest reserves.

After the tradition and policy of the U.S. Forest Service, an agency of the Department of Agriculture, were formalized through the passage of the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act in 1960, public debate continued over national forest management. Significant controversy circulated around clear-cutting in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia and the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana, and forest management became a much-publicized political issue. U.S. senator Lee Metcalf asked Arnold Bolle, dean of forestry at the University of Montana, to investigate Forest Service practices, and in 1970, Bolle issued a report stating that clear-cuts were too extensive and that other harvesting methods were more appropriate. Moreover, reforestation costs exceeded economic return, and given the abundance of land, timber removal without replanting was considered preferable to costly reforestation. Generally, the press and the public viewed the report as an indictment of clear-cutting, and the Forest Service fell under greater scrutiny.