Woody Guthrie said it in his song. This Land Is Your Land. which has become a national folk anthem. In 1945, Smokey Bear started saying “Only you can prevent forest fires.” Woodsy Owl began telling it like it is on America’s first Earth Day in 1970, when he said, “Give a Hoot – Don’t Pollute.” A later message from Woodsy told his friends “Lend a Hand – Care for the Land.”

For those Americans who say, “My land, love it or leave it,” the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service (USDAFS), the designated custodian of nearly 200 million acres of public land, might want to respond with, “Leave it like you found it – or better.”

Actually, the USDAFS has the welcome mat out for all visitors to “our land.” On the USDA Forest Service web site Special Places Newsletter: A Travel and Tourism Planner’s Guide to Your National Forests, September 2001, the Message from the Chief Dale N. Bosworth states:

“America’s forests and grasslands are the ‘golden crown’ of outdoor settings where national and international visitors alike can enjoy a wide variety of premier adventure travel and ecotourism recreation activities. From Alaska’s forests and glaciers, Idaho’s wild rivers, Utah’s and Colorado’s ski mountains, New Mexico’s Jemez Mountains heritage, to Caribbean tropical forests, I invite you to visit your national forests for outdoor fun and experiences of a lifetime.”

From its home page you can go to a variety National Forest web sites, their National Headquarters, Fire Information, or Work with the Forest Service links. The Reservations link (www.reserveusa.com) will be particularly helpful to RV, trailer, fifth wheel and camper visitors who prefer to know where they are going and what is required. For instance, if you enjoy fishing remote lakes, river and streams you can reserve a “unique cabin in either the Chugah or Tongass National Forests, located in majestic and scenic Alaska.”

Other options include reserving one or more of over 49,000 campsites provided by the Corps of Engineers and the Forest Service. When you’re looking for pristine wilderness experience contact Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) for your wilderness permit reservations. And, when the summer heats up with wildfires you can get information about high-risk areas, restrictions and conditions.

Summertime, and the living is easier for travelers to any one of the nations 155 national forests or 21 national grasslands when they know and respect the advice of the USDA Forest Service. It does not go unnoticed when the USDAFS butts heads with hunters, fishers, ranchers and farmers over land and water usage. However, as responsible guardians of the land ourselves, we can only respect and follow Forest Service guidelines.

The USDA Forest Service has invited the travel and tourism industry to join them in “promoting the development of responsible, sustainable recreation on the land. As visitors leave the beaten track and venture off from our developed facilities, we have adopted a major tool for educating tourists and recreational users on ways to conserve our public lands. This tool is Leave No Trace, Inc.”

Leave No Trace (LNT) is a nonprofit education program uniting the Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and US Fish and Wildlife Service – with manufacturers, outdoor retailers, user groups, educators, and individuals who share their commitment to public lands.

“The mission of Leave No Trace is to promote and inspire responsible outdoor recreation through education, research, and partnerships.” It is about the future for communities of peoples, plants, and animals.

Fire is the greatest, but not the only, threat to our national forest lands. The Forest Service estimates “fires burn about 12 million acres of forest land annually – destroying timber crops and damaging watershed lands, kill or maim large numbers of animals, and destroy recreational and scenic values of the land.”

According to the Forest Service, people cause most wildfires. However, lightening strikes that ignite dry underbrush start many fires as well.

In the summer, we live deep in the woods along the Deschutes River, 11 miles from La Pine in Central Oregon. Two years ago, an unattended campfire ignited a wildfire that burned nine acres and took three days to fully contain, three miles from our house. A month later, a campfire left for dead, smoldered and started a two-acre blaze less than two miles from our house.

Last August, a US Forest Service information team paid us a visit. The Crane Complex Fires, eight miles west of us, were ignited by lightening and eventually burned 720 acres of forest. The combined fires were 40 percent contained. The Forest Service people pointed out the fire and our location on the map, and went over our evacuation plan and exit route. They left a 12-page copy of “Living with Fire: a guide for the homeowner.” The final, bold-print statement was “Most importantly, STAY CALM!” Easy for them to say! We were making our list of what to have ready to take with us.

Approximately 400 personnel from as far away as Colorado, Indiana and North Carolina and three water-spraying helicopters contained the fire the following day. Eight or more national, state and local agencies were involved in that fire alone.
It takes hundreds and thousands of personnel to put out wildfires throughout the country during each high-risk, dry season. In addition, it takes thousands of paid personnel and volunteers to provide the services that maintain our national parks and forest lands.

The Forest Service currently is looking for volunteers to conduct field interviews of visitors to a select number of recreational use sites over the next two years. Interviewers are asked for a one-month commitment, and “secret shoppers” who will drive or walk through certain interview points are asked for as little as a few hours. They will be interviewed and report back to the coordinator. See the FS Retiree web page or call 707-574-6233 for information.

Volunteer opportunities as well as seasonal/temporary, paid positions are available with the US Forest Service, State Parks, or the National Parks System, which is a bureau of the Department of the Interior.

In 1872, Yellowstone became the first of more than 300 national park units covering 76 million acres. The National Park Service was created in 1916 to “conserve scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such a manner and such means as will leave them unimpaired for future generations.”

The National Park Service employs over 8,000 full-time people, and during peak season the parks staffs are augmented by temporary workers as well as unpaid volunteers. Many RV owners and full-time travelers volunteer their time at Forest Service, National and State Parks campgrounds – usually in exchange for their space and other amenities.
Because of the tragic events in our country on September 11, 2001, there is the possibility that more Americans will be traveling the USA this summer and autumn, visiting national forests, parks, historical monuments and landmarks to get in touch with “their land.” It may be a time for honoring and respecting the land for which we have become custodians – caretakers.

Historians say that when President Theodore Roosevelt took a hard look at the devastated forests of the Eastern United States in the late 1800s he cried “Enough!” and resolved that the grandeur and magnificence of the Western landscape would not meet that same fate. He then set the wheels in motion for the creation of the US Forest Service.

Historians also report that when the friendly Chief Seattle acquiesced to the to the settlers’ encroachment upon tribal lands in 1853 he simply cried. Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Territory believed that only the Great Spirit truly owned the land.
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