The Forest Service was set up to maintain a permanent forest system managed by scientific experts trained to protect the forest ecology while providing a sustained yield of renewable products and services, including wood, forage, clean water, wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities. This mandate was a tall order, and the agency was not up to the task. The Forest Service has become a beleaguered agency, assailed by criticism from all sides. State fish and game agencies charge that Forest Service management practices are destroying the nations best wildlife habitat and forcing scores of species to the brink of extinction. Cities bemoan the agency's failure to protect their municipal water supplies from degradation by logging and grazing.
Economists describe it as a bloated bureaucracy motivated mainly by self-aggrandizement.
Conservationists maintain that it has utterly failed to protect some of this nations most important natural resources, while allowing the destruction of America's last unspoiled natural habitat. When the demands of timber production and other uses have conflicted, the Forest Service has consistently chosen to meet the industry's demands. If not for diligent citizens and the U.S. courts, even the remnants of America's once vast, lush forests would be gone forever. During World War II and the post-war boom years, timber cutting in our National Forests increased dramatically. Between 1941 and 1966, timber sales increased from 1.5 billion board feet to 12.1 bbf.