On June 12, 1960, Congress passed the Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act, designed to prevent the obliteration of national forests by logging and water reclamation projects. This law officially mandated the management of national forests to...

The Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA) was passed in response to the growing tension between the timber industry and environmentalists in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. These tensions can be traced to increased...

The national forest system in the United States must be considered one of the great success stories of the conservation movement. This remains true despite the continual controversies that seem to accompany administration of national forest lands by...

Smokey Bear poster The USDA Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's national forests and national grasslands. In addition, the Research and Development branch of the Forest Service...

The National Forest Management Act and its implementing regulations require the United States Forest Service to manage the national forests' biodiversity based on a set of science-based management prescriptions. Over the past two decades the scientific principles underpinning those prescriptions have evolved, adding new...

Federal land management agencies in the United States, particularly those responsible for overseeing public forestlands, are under constant vigil by those demanding environmentally responsible land use. Since the early 1990s, many agencies have responded to these political demands by brandishing Ecosystem Management -a framework...

The U.S. Forest Service is teaming with a nonprofit foundation to allow consumers to participate in a voluntary program to "offset" their carbon dioxide emissions.Under the agreement to be announced Wednesday, the Forest Service and the National Forest Foundation will allow individuals or groups to...