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The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages 193 million acres (780,000 km2) of land. Major divisions of the agency include the Chief's Office, National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, Business Operations, and Research and Development. The agency manages about 25% of federal lands and is the only major national land management agency not part of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
In the United States, national forest is a classification of protected and managed federal lands that are largely forest and woodland areas. They are owned collectively by the American people through the federal government and managed by the United States Forest Service, a division of the United States Department of Agriculture. The U.S. Forest Service is also a forestry research organization which provides financial assistance to state and local forestry industry. There are 154 national forests in the United States.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., and with oversight over 247.3 million acres (1,001,000 km2), it governs one eighth of the country's landmass.
The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) is a United States federal law signed by President Jimmy Carter on December 2, 1980. ANILCA provided varying degrees of special protection to over 157,000,000 acres (64,000,000 ha) of land, including national parks, national wildlife refuges, national monuments, wild and scenic rivers, recreational areas, national forests, and conservation areas. It was, and remains to date, the single largest expansion of protected lands in history and more than doubled the size of the National Park System.
Federal lands are lands in the United States owned by the federal government. Pursuant to the Property Clause of the United States Constitution, Congress has the power to retain, buy, sell, and regulate federal lands, such as by limiting cattle grazing on them. These powers have been recognized in a long line of United States Supreme Court decisions.
The National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS) of the United States protects federally managed wilderness areas designated for preservation in their natural condition. Activity on formally designated wilderness areas is coordinated by the National Wilderness Preservation System. Wilderness areas are managed by four federal land management agencies: the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management.
National Conservation Lands, formally known as the National Landscape Conservation System, is a 35-million-acre (140,000 km2) collection of lands in 873 federally recognized areas considered to be the crown jewels of the American West. These lands represent 10% of the 258 million acres (1,040,000 km2) managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The BLM is the largest federal public land manager and is responsible for over 40% of all the federal public land in the nation. The other major federal public land managers include the US Forest Service (USFS), National Park Service (NPS), and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).
The Weeks Act is a federal law enacted by the United States Congress on March 1, 1911. Introduced by Massachusetts Congressman John W. Weeks and signed into law by President William Howard Taft, the law authorized the United States Secretary of Agriculture to "Examine, locate and recommend for purchase ... such lands within the watersheds of navigable streams as ... may be necessary to the regulation of flow of navigable streams...." This meant that the federal government would be able to purchase private land if the purchase was deemed necessary to protect rivers' and watersheds' headwaters in the eastern United States. Furthermore, the law allowed for land acquired through this act to be preserved and maintained as national forest territory. Six years earlier, the Transfer Act of 1905 transferred control over the federal forest reserves from the General Land Office of the Department of the Interior to the Department of Agriculture and its Forest Service. Responsibility for land purchased through the Weeks Act was not given to former Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot because he resigned from the National Forest Reservation Commission in 1907, with the stipulation that he would only resign if he could appoint his successor. This stipulation led to the Forest Service's tradition of picking a head with forestry knowledge. With the land acquired through the Weeks Act, Pinchot's successor obtained the power to issue permits for water power development on National Forests. The Weeks Act appropriated $9 million to purchase 6 million acres (24,000 km2) of land in the eastern United States.
The Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974(RPA) (16 U.S.C. §§ 1600 et seq.) is a United States federal law which authorizes long-range planning by the United States Forest Service to protect, develop, and enhance the productivity and other values of forest resources. RPA requires that a renewable resource assessment and a Forest Service plan be prepared every ten and five years, respectively, to plan and prepare for the future of natural resources. RPA was reorganized, expanded, and otherwise amended by the National Forest Management Act of 1976.
The General Revision Act of 1891, also known as the Forest Reserve Act of 1891, was a federal law signed in 1891 by President Benjamin Harrison. The Act reversed previous policy initiatives, such as the Timber Culture Act of 1873, which did not preclude land fraud by wealthy individuals and corporations. The acquisition of vast mineral and timber resources in the Western United States was often cited as a governing motive for such individuals and corporations to claim land rights for future settlement and resource depletion activities. The legacy of the General Revision Act of 1891 is frequently credited as its serving as a catalyst to a series of federal land reform initiatives, notably under President Theodore Roosevelt. From the Reclamation Act of 1902 to the formation of the United States Forest Service in 1905, the General Revision Act of 1891 acted as a critical first piece of federal legislation granting increased plots of publicly allotted land and decreased extraction rights to privately held western land owners in the early 20th century.
The Nantahala National Forest (/ˌnæntəˈheɪlə/), is the largest of the four national forests in North Carolina, lying in the mountains and valleys of western North Carolina. The Nantahala is the second wettest region in the country, after the Pacific Northwest. Due to its environmental importance and historical ties with the Cherokee, the forest was officially established on January 29, 1920, by President Woodrow Wilson. The word "Nantahala" is a Cherokee derived, meaning "Land of the Noonday Sun." In some spots, the sun reaches the floors of the deep gorges of the forest only when it is high overhead at midday. This was part of the homeland of the historic Cherokee and their indigenous ancestors, who have occupied the region for thousands of years.
Midnight forests was a nickname given to the forests created by President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt near the end of his term as president.
San Gabriel National Forest was established as the San Gabriel Forest Reserve by the General Land Office in California on December 20, 1892 through a proclamation order by President Benjamin Harrison. With and area of 555,520 acres (2,248.1 km2), it was the first federal reserve in the state of California.
The Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960 is a federal law passed by the United States Congress on June 12, 1960. This law authorizes and directs the Secretary of Agriculture to develop and administer the renewable resources of timber, range, water, recreation and wildlife on the national forests for multiple use and sustained yield of the products and services.
The Copeland Report was the result of a United States Congressional investigation of forestry for the purpose of outlining a coordinated plan that would "insure all of the economic and social benefits which can and should be derived from productive forests by fully utilizing the forest land." The investigation was called for by Senator Royal S. Copeland of New York in Senate Resolution 175 Earle Clapp, later Chief Forester of the US Forest Service, supervised the report.
The Forest Service Organic Administration Act of 1897 provided the main statutory basis for the management of forest reserves in the United States, hence the commonly used term "Organic Act". The legislation's formal title is the Sundry Civil Appropriations Act of 1897, which was signed into law on June 4, 1897, by President William McKinley.
The General Exchange Act of 1922 permitted the United States Secretary of the Interior to accept or acquire lands outside of the boundaries of current national parks deemed to be of national-forest purposes interest. Federal land could also be exchanged for privately owned land within the boundaries of United States National Forest. The law permits acquisition of lands by exchange, encumbered by reservations of timber, or minerals or easements that would not interfere with use of the lands for National Forest purposes.
Starting in 1876, and undergoing a series of name changes, the U.S. Forest Service grew to protect and use millions of acres of forest on public land. Gifford Pinchot, an early advocate of scientific forestry, along with President Theodore Roosevelt and conservation organizations, led the effort to manage forest for the public good.
The Eastern Wilderness Areas Act was signed into law by President Gerald Ford on January 3, 1975. The Act designated 16 new wilderness areas in the Eastern United States, including 207,000 acres (84,000 ha) of wilderness on national lands in 13 states. Although it was originally untitled, the bill signed by Ford has come to be known as the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act.
The Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 (WFRHBA), is an Act of Congress, signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon on December 18, 1971. The act covered the management, protection and study of "unbranded and unclaimed horses and burros on public lands in the United States."
References
- Godfrey, Anthony The Ever-Changing View-A History of the National Forests in California USDA Forest Service Publishers, 2005
- Steen, Harold K. The United States Forest Service A History University of Washington Press, 1976