num_pages: 416
description: Jack Ward Thomas, an eminent wildlife biologist and U.S.Forest Service career scientist, was drafted in the late 1980s to headteams of scientists developingstrategies for managing the habitat of thenorthern spotted owl. That assignment led to his selection as ForestService chief during the early years of the Clinton administration. It ishistorys good fortune that Thomas kept journals of his thoughts and dailyexperiences, and that he is a superb writer able to capture the momentwith clarity and grace.The issues Thomas dealt with in office and noted in his journals lie atthe heart of recent Forest Service policy and controversy, starting withPresident Clintons Timber Summit in Portland, Oregon, dealing with thespotted owl issue, and the 1994 loss of fourteen firefighters in the StormKing Mountain fire in Colorado. Against aconstant backdrop of partisan politics in the White House and Congress,Thomas discusses issues ranging from grazing in the national forests,long-term pulp timber sales in Alaska, and the Forest Service LawEnforcement Division to the New World Mine near Yellowstone National Park.He considers the timber salvage rider and its linkage to forest health,the Department of Justice and Counsel on Environmental Quality influenceon Forest Service policies, and interagency management for the ColumbiaRiver Basin.Woven throughout these excerpts from his diary is Thomas's conviction thatthe effective, ethical management of wildlife depends on how themanagement effort is situated within the broader humancontext, with all its intransigence and unpredictability. Writing in 1995,Thomas says, "Things simply dont work the way that students are taught innatural resources policy classes--not even close. . . .There is simply noway that scholars of the subject can understand the ad hoc processes thatgo on within only loosely defined boundaries. Wildlife management, hesays, is "90 percent about people and 10 percent about animals," and whenit comes to learning about people, wildlife managers are on their own.This book is the record of how one man met that challenge. About the AuthorsJack Ward Thomas is Boone and Crockett Professor of Wildlife Conservationat the University of Montana. Harold K. Steen, former president of theForest History Society, currently teaches conservation history at NewMexico State University.
language: English
title: Jack Ward Thomas: The Journals of a Forest Service Chief
titlecomplete: Jack Ward Thomas: The Journals of a Forest Service Chief
ratings_count: 5
publisher: University of Washington Press