THERE is much talk today about “reinventing government.” The goal is to both improve outcomes and save dollars. The Forest Service is an excellent candidate for such reforms. The Forest Service’s creators are credited with high ideals, but America’s sylvan socialism has suffered the liabilities of socialism elsewhere. The Forest Service was created because of […]

MANY recreationalists bristle at the prospect of recreation fees on our national forests. Why should we pay to hike on “our” land? They are outraged, however, when they encounter clear-cuts near timberline on these same lands. But if they could choose between recreation fees and timber cutting, might fees then be accepted as the lesser […]

Second in a series of articles on the Forest Service and the economics of the timber industry. BROCK Evans, vice president and chief lobbyist for the National Audubon Society, recently spoke at a University of Washington Environmental Management Seminar. In response to a question about reforming the Forest Service, he cataloged many destructive, wasteful and […]

First of a series of articles on the Forest Service and the economics of the timber industry. IN the fifth grade I started a conservation club for my school. To me, the U.S. Forest Service epitomized conservation and stewardship. Rangers maintained trails, practiced ecology, and found lost hikers while Smokey the Bear admonished us to […]

CLINTON’S appointments of two strong environmentalists to the posts of secretary of the interior and administrator of EPA have alarmed many business leaders. But the choices of Bruce Babbitt and Carol Browner for these key environmental positions accurately reflect the “greening of America.” They reconfirm the practical necessity for business to act in environmentally sensitive […]

IS RANCHING on the federal range an environmentally destructive anachronism? Many environmentalists seem to think so. Less than 30,000 ranchers graze cattle on 350 million acres of federal lands, an area twice the size of Texas. Environmentalists hope the public lands will be, as the bumper sticker intones, “Cattle Free by ’93.” Grazing has also […]

KILLING WOLVES is a dramatic and highly controversial wildlife management practice. Alaska has recently proposed this as a way to boost caribou, moose, and deer populations for tourists and hunters. But many people find gunning wolves from airplanes offensive and are outraged. The logic underlying the killing seems clear, but the issues are complex. Wolves […]

AS PRESIDENT-ELECT Clinton and Vice President-elect Gore look toward Jan. 20, they must confront the problem of reconciling their environmental rhetoric with economic reality. Much is promised: Al Gore’s environmental commitment is unprecedented for a vice president and adds to pent-up pressures to address environmental concerns. But this pressure comes during a flat economy and, […]

THE election of Governor Clinton and Senator Gore alerts us to a new environmental movement. They claim to be seeking innovative and efficient ways to achieve environmental goals. For the past 20 years such an alternative approach has been developed. It may at last receive the attention in Washington that it has earned in universities […]

James Watt, Ronald Reagan’s first Secretary of the Interior, was an environmental paradox. To environmentalists, he personified an obsolete view of nature, a view seeing only commercial value in natural resources. But for the Greens, Watt was a useful icon of rapacious industrial exploitation. As such, he deserves much of the credit for the rise […]