Forest Service seeks private help with urban forests

To combat the "assault from urban neighbors and budget cuts" on national forests near cities, the U.S. Forest Service is turning to the private sector for help.

Fewer than two dozen national forests are classified as urban, but they get nearly 33 percent of all forest visitors, up 50 percent since 1980. During the same time, the funds appropriated to manage recreation in these forests has declined 25 percent.

For example, California's San Bernardino National Forest is now busier than either Yellowstone or Yosemite National parks, and its wilderness management budget has declined $800,000 in four years. San Bernardino Forest Supervisor Gene Zimmerman: "The job we face is an impossible one."

The San Bernardino is "leading the trend" of national forests forming "stronger partnerships" with corporations, "several of which have economic interests in the forest." Partners include Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water Co., Mitsubishi Cement Corp. and Snow Valley Ski Resort.

USFS officials "acknowledge the danger that corporate partners could maneuver forest policy to their own advantage." Honda dealers have given San Bernardino managers a small fleet of cars and all-terrain vehicles.

Rick Cables, supervisor of two national forests that border Denver and Colorado Springs: "But where else can you go? The taxpayers aren't going to bail us out" (Frank Clifford, Los Angeles Times, 11/3).