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Forest
History
Forest Service logging was virtually unbridled in the Inland Northwest from 1950 through 1990. The passage of the National Environmental Policy Act in 1969 and the National Forest Management Act 1976 did little to check the massive clearcutting and road building.
In the 1980s, a few inland northwest forest activists successfully filed a few administrative appeals and stopped several timber sales. Many individuals, especially those living in rural communities surrounded by national forests, were concerned about the destructive logging occurring on our national forests. They expressed their concerns to Forest Service officials through letters and meetings with little success. They lacked the tools or the knowledge to successfully alter the destructive and illegal Forest Service timber sale policies.
The National Forest Management Act was passed in 1976, which mandated the Forest Service produce Forest Plans that would determine the management of individual national forests, while ensuring the protection of the fish, wildlife, soils, water and the genetic and biological diversity of the forests. The Plans were to be reviewed and updated every ten years. Most of the Forest Plans in the Inland Northwest were released around 1987.
A dramatic change in the effectiveness of forest activism occurred with the beginning of The Lands Council's (TLC) Forest Watch Program in 1990. The Lands Council hired Barry Rosenberg, who had recently filed successful appeals against several timber sales on the Idaho Panhandle National Forests. His job was to create a program that would provide forest activists throughout the Inland Northwest with the needed skills to effectively influence management on our national forests. As the program grew, the experienced activist helped to expand the network by training others. Today, activists in eight national forests monitor Forest Service activities on approximately 17.5 million acres. Barry Rosenberg is currently the Executive Director for Kootenai Environmental Alliance (KEA).