Forest Service (U.S.)

The u.s. forest service is the federal agency responsible for the management of 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands in the United States. A chief forester provides broad policy direction and oversees budgetary matters for the entire Forest Service. The chief reports to the undersecretary of natural resources and environment in the Department of Agriculture, and works closely with the presidential administration and Congress over budgetary and policy matters. The national forest system is divided into nine regions, usually encompassing several states. Within each region, a regional forester oversees management plans, budgetary issues, and coordinates various activities with the forest supervisors for each of their national forests. Each national forest is further divided into districts that vary in size from 50,000 to more than 1 million acres. Each district is run by a district ranger, who oversees a staff of 10–100 persons with specialized training in forestry, range conservation, travel management, resource economics, and anthropology.

The agency's mission consists of five parts: 1) to protect and manage natural resources on national forest system lands; 2) to conduct research on all aspects of forestry, rangeland management and forest resource utilization; 3) provide community assistance and cooperation with state and local governments, forest industries, and private landowners to help protect and manage nonfederal forests; 4) to achieve and support an effective workforce that reflects the full range of diversity of the American people and; 5) provide international assistance in formulating policy and coordinating U.S. support for the protection and management of the world's forest resources. Despite this diverse and broadly defined mission, much of the agency's history concerns the dominance of timber production and the challenges of bringing conservation management issues to the forefront.

The Forest Service was created in 1905 when the Forest Division in the General Land Office of the Department of the Interior was transferred to the Department of Agriculture. Management priorities included protecting water resources and providing an efficient and continuous supply of timber for the nation. The first chief forester, Gifford Pinchot, argued that the nation's resources could best be developed to serve the “greatest good, for the greatest number, in the long run” by replacing the short-term profit motives of unregulated industrial development with rational scientific management, carried out by state and federal agencies.

For the first four decades, the Forest Service worked closely with and realized mutual interests from players in timber, livestock, and mining interests. This arrangement (touted by some as a “iron triangle” or subgovernment), when coupled with athe acency's ideal of scientific objectivity in management decisions, presented a significant barrier to the adoption of new management priorities, constituencies, and interests.