Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
ble, predictable flows of resources, resulting in the “greatest good” for both local
forest-proximate communities and the nation as a whole (Hays 1959; Wilkinson
1992).
The federal forests that were later to become the Apache-Sitgreaves National
Forests, like many national forests in the American West, were carved out of public
domain lands that had already experienced significant environmental impacts, partic-
ularly from the overgrazing of domestic livestock and the exclusion of naturally oc-
curring fire (Cooper 1960; Scurlock and Finch 1997). These impacts set the stage for
an explosive growth in tree populations in what had previously been largely open, sa-
vanna-like forests with rich, grassy understories (Covington 2003). Ecologists have re-
cently recognized the detrimental effects of increased tree densities in these semiarid
forests and have recommended ways of restoring forests to more resilient conditions
(Moore, Covington, and Fulé 1999; Allen et al. 2002). For much of the twentieth cen-
tury, however, the Forest Service's activities in the Southwest centered on the contin-
ued suppression of wildfire, afforestation of grassy openings, and the institution of a
timber harvesting schedule that would replace slower-growing, older forests with
stands of faster-growing, younger trees.
Under the policy model that prevailed until recent decades, national forests were
assumed to meet their obligations to nearby communities by providing natural
resource-based economic activity. Federal forest managers engineered national
forests to optimize commodity outputs; these outputs supplied raw material for rural
industry, and industry provided steady employment for rural residents (Kennedy,
Thomas, and Glueck 2001). Even passage of the Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act in
1960, which recognized watershed, wildlife, and recreational values on the national
forests, did not fundamentally alter the model of federal forests as producers of “out-
puts,” whether these were measured in board feet of timber, tons of forage, days of
recreation, numbers of wildlife, or cubic feet of water (Hirt 1994).
In the years following World War II, several developments set the stage for what
would later entail a dramatic shift in the way national forests were managed across the
United States. On the one hand, national forest managers were tasked with providing
wood fiber to industry to support a surging postwar national economy. This represented
a major change from the Forest Service's largely custodial role in the prewar years (Hirt
1994). At the same time, a growing body of scientists began to raise alarms about the un-
intended consequences of America's attempts to engineer a better world through alter-
ations of the natural environment. These concerns were reflected in public activism
within the burgeoning environmental movement and took political form in federal
policies such as the Wilderness Act (1964), the National Environmental Policy Act
(1969), and the Endangered Species Act (1973), among others (Brunson and Kennedy
1995). Also concurrently, rapid population growth in the West spurred sprawling resi-
dential development that increasingly bumped up against national forest boundaries.
These patterns of demographic and land use changes altered the economies of many
rural (or formerly rural) communities in ways that diminished the importance of tradi-
tional natural resource industries. The location and layout of new exurban develop-
ments, in what would later come to be called the wildland-urban interface, created
Search WWH ::




Custom Search