Forest Under Siege: The Story of Old Growth After Gifford Pinchot

by Rand Schenck

Genres: History

248 pages, Paperback

Published May 2, 2024

Reviews

[Rhett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really great review of the history of the US Forest Service and the legacy of its founder Gifford Pinchot!

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rand's book offers a 100-year history of the U.S. Forest Service with a focus on the national forest named for the agency's founder, Gifford Pinchot. Much of Part I -- Stewardship: The Life of the Forest was a familiar story. I really became engaged, both sad and angry, as I read Part II - High Production: The Death of the Forest. He captured the history I lived through in the 1980s when the Gifford Pinchot National Forest sought to liquidate all its old-growth forests. The Forest Supervisor considered me a trouble maker because I objected to the rampant road-building and cutting of old-growth. I have a file drawer filled with letters I wrote objecting to planned timber sales in old-growth forests that the agency, in turn, ignored. As Rand reports in the book, it took a federal court injunction to stop the madness, and most of the managers responsible who still are living have no regrets and are incapable of admitting that they did anything wrong. Rand ends the book, in Part III - Ecological Management: The Rebirth of the Forest in high hopes that ecological restoration will see the protection of the 5% of remaining old-growth forests and the development of new old-growth over time. I am somewhat more skeptical than Rand that the arrogance that led the destruction has been fully eradicated from the Forest Service ranks since I still see proposals to cut old-growth trees and the refusal to conserve mature forests to become future old-growth. It is a good history, with the future yet to be seen.