W.V. “Mac” McConnell writes from Florida. He is a U.S. Forest Service retiree whose Power Point presentations have appeared on our website many times. His latest efforts are nearby: an updated version of his earlier “Timber Resource Management” Power Point and a fascinating photograph, “One Landscape: Four Views,” that shows what is happening on adjacent public and private forests at Deep Creek, near Townsend, Montana. On the left, the dead and dying Townsend Ranger District on the Helena National Forest, and on the right a healthy stand of privately-owned lodgepole pine that will soon be ready for harvest – again.

McConnell has some sympathy for the Forest Service, which he says must deal daily with the “leave it to nature crowd” that opposes any man-directed action that might help rescue the Townsend Ranger District from its eventual and inevitable self-destruction.
 And McConnell is right when he says that the Forest Service is obliged to listen to points of view offered by all Americans, no matter how ill-informed they are. But the bedrock question Americans must ask themselves is whether they want their national forests to look like the forest on the left or the forest on the right. You decide – and let us know what you think.

But before you decide, be sure to read the Wynsma and Joslin essays that appear nearby. They offer still more food for thought on a question that only voters and their elected officials can decide: should national forests be allowed to die and burn naturally or should we pull them back from the brink of ecological collapse. We have known how to do this work – safely and successfully - for decades. What has been missing- and is still missing - is the political will to do what is morally and environmentally right for our forests and right by future generations.

View the Slideshow below:

The Interior West’s Dilemma A Tragedy of the Commons