The Bush administration created an uproar a couple of years ago when it announced yet another change in its management of national forest roadless areas. One of the last things Bill Clinton did as president was effectively declare some 58 million acres of backcountry off-limits to road-building and most logging. One of the first things the Bush administration set out to do was reverse that policy, running into difficulty at every turn. In 2005, after losing in court, the White House took a new tack, and announced it was going to give governors greater say over the disposition of roadless lands in their states.
Environmentalists howled. The timber industry cheered.
We recall that conversation with great comfort following Friday's announcement of Kimbell's appointment as the new chief of the Forest Service, replacing the retiring Dale Bosworth. Bosworth has been a good chief, and the agency remains in trustworthy hands with Kimbell.
Bosworth made great progress in refocusing public debate about forest management. The lack of complete success on that score does nothing to diminish the great strides made in promoting greater public understanding of forest health issues. Bosworth has been persuasive about the need to move beyond yesterday's epic battles over logging to confront greater challenges looming over the national forests: fire, loss of open space, invasive weeds and unmanaged recreation. Those things will have a lot more to do with the quality, productivity and usefulness of the national forests than whether the agency sells a little more or a little less timber.
The Forest Service remains in the throes of what Bosworth calls “analysis paralysis,” but he's made inroads there, too - if nothing else, highlighting the fact that the stalemate that ensues when people make perfection the enemy of good is not benign. Inaction can be as bad as or worse than imperfect action.
Kimbell, likewise, sees the challenge extending beyond mere maintenance of the forests to restoration of healthier forests. It's something she's worked to promote as regional forester. She told the Missoulian in 2004, “My priorities start and stop with what I can do to facilitate restoration of healthy forests. ... We have to manage for the health of the whole landscape - for clean water, for wildlife habitat, for healthy vegetation, for recreation.”
Kimbell's appointment earned her a surprising rhetorical elbow in the ribs from Sen. Max Baucus over her subordinate role in a national review of recreation-site economics; Montana's senior senator may simply be putting the new chief on notice that the Forest Service can forget about closing campgrounds and other facilities on her watch. Some fringe environmentalists also are grumbling about Kimbell - as they perhaps would about the naming of anyone other than one of their own anti-logging crusaders. Constant criticism comes with this job.
Just don't hold your breath waiting for Kimbell to mix it up with her critics. She undoubtedly hears them, but we'll be surprised if she proves easily distracted from job one - bringing about better stewardship of the national forests.
Running the Forest Service isn't the easiest job in the country, not with all the competing demands the public makes of its forests. Often overlooked, however, is that most of us want many of the same things from our forests - things like clean water, abundant wildlife, recreational opportunity, useful wood and a legacy to leave future generations. With her own clear vision and an unwavering sense of purpose, Kimbell now has the opportunity to guide Americans toward the least-acknowledged resource in the national forests: common ground.
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