He lugged clipboards on his father's field trips into Sierra woods and inevitably followed him into a Forest Service career. I never really thought of doing something different, really, growing up in the forest. Bosworth's son, too, followed the family tracks into a Forest Service career after Air Force service. But now Dale Bosworth confronts a Sierra Nevada and a Forest Service much evolved from his father's day. How Bosworth copes will shape the 20 million acres of Forest Service land in California he now oversees, and the course of political debate on Capitol Hill.
Some differences are small but suggestive.
When Bosworth was as young as 7 or 8, he'd ride along while his father checked the woods. His dad would enumerate the names of species, and young Bosworth would dutifully record the details. It was common practice then, but strictly verboten now. The 1,800-page Sierra Nevada plan, issued barely a week before former President Clinton left office in January, calls for continued reductions in Sierra logging. An average of about 200 million board-feet was harvested from Sierra forests in the past three years.