The Road-RIPorter, Summer Solstice 2010

DePaving the Way

The Forest Service’s Fatal Flaw?

By Bethanie Walder

edipus Rex, Macbeth, Willy Lo-man, Tony Soprano, and … theForest Service? A diverse groupwith a common theme – tragic or atalfaws. From ancient literature to mod-ern times, people have written about,read about and dissected the concepto the atal faw. High school and col-lege classes abound with papers abouttragic heroes, atal faws, and what canbe learned rom them. While it’s been along time since I’ve taken such a class,and my metaphorical synapses are alittle rusty, it seems to me that the For-est Service may have a atal faw whenit comes to implementing their newrestoration vision: accountability.One word may be too simplistic todescribe the whole problem – whichis really an issue o inrastructure-de-ciency. Basically, the Forest Service hasno sta, program, or oce dedicated toimplementing restoration at either thepolicy or on-the-ground levels, yet theyhave adopted restoration as their newvision or the 21

Century. The problemis, you can’t have a 21

Century visionwithout a commensurate inrastructureto enable you to implement that vision.To adapt a well known metaphor, “i allthe Forest Service has is a chainsaw,then every restoration opportunitywill be a tree.” The inrastructure andaccountability issue is deep-seated andemblematic o how hard it is or theForest Service to adapt to changingconditions – both politically and on-the-ground.To get a sense o whether this re-ally is a tragic faw, here are a ew quickinternet denitions o the concept (em-phasis added in all denitions below):“A tragic faw is a literary term that reers to a personality trait o a main char-acter that leads to his or her downall. In other words,

a character with a tragic awis in need of some kind of attitude adjustment.”

http://www.clisnotes.com/Section/What-is-a-tragic-faw-.id-305408,articleId-8035.html#ixzz0pY1GMVJi“The tragic hero is a longstanding literary concept, a character with a FatalFlaw like Pride who is

doomed to fail in search of their Tragic Dream despite their best efforts or good intentions.”

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TragicHero.While many people within the agency really do have the best o intentionswhen it comes to restoration, I am concerned that the Forest Service, without an“attitude adjustment,” is doomed to ail.For more than a century, the Forest Service has operated largely as a providero natural resources like timber, oil, gas, grazing, and even recreation. But supply-ing timber is what the agency is most known or. They’ve created an inrastructurethat enables them to do this – though environmental accountability has long beena problem. In 2009, however, US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack outlined a newvision or the Forest Service: restoration. While creative agency sta have beenimplementing restoration projects or years, Vilsack dened a new guiding restora-tion vision with an emphasis on clean water.

Unfortunately, the lack of accountability has a ripple effect on Forest Service efforts torestore public lands. Photo by Dan Funsch.