Forest Service In The 1970's

670 Words3 Pages

Introduction: Before the 1960’s the Forest Service was a thriving federal agency. The organization’s population consisted of white males that all held the same beliefs causing them to be a unified force. The laws and policy of the time were in the Forest Service’s favor and left a majority of decisions up to the agencies discretion. However when the 1970’s arrived, so did a multitude of environmental policies. These policies not only chipped away at that freedom of the agency but caused internal changes that shifted the dynamics of the Forest Service. The dynamics changed from a single vision held unanimously amongst workers to a divided agency with rising internal conflict. This paper will discuss how the Forest Service has handled changes of (1) law and policy (2) forest management and (3) workforce diversity Law and Policy: …show more content…

However once the green movement of the 1970’s struck, acts such as the National Environmental Policy Act (1970), Endangered Species Act (1973), and Federal Land Policy and Management Act (1976), to name a few, shook the agency to the core. The Forest Service went from an agency with few legal constraints to suddenly being immersed in them. The Forest Service not only had more restraints on what they could and could not do but now the public had the right to litigate the Forest Service if they felt the agency was in violation with these policies. These new legal constraints forced the agency to change how they were previously managing the national forest