After all, none of us appreciates being lied to. For instance, through the judicious use of the Smoky the Bear PR campaign, the public is told that forest fires are universally bad and destructive. No reference to the role of fire ecology in shaping healthy biologically diverse forests is made. Billions of tax payer dollars are wasted in suppressing fires. As a result heavy fire fighting machinery compacts and disrupts fragile soils and crushes living beings.
Insects are another example.
The beneficial role of insects in creating and maintaining uneven aged forests and soils with diverse structural and habitat diversity is not mentioned. The reason for this is clear. This is the only perspective that could exist with such a narrow view, and clearly this is not ecosystem management by anyone's standards that I know. Better we call the agency the Timber Service to accurately reflect it's philosophy and the reality that those of us who conduct surveys in the forest discover in the field. The greatest threat to North American forests is not insect pathogens and wildfires.