Convened in January 2005, the U.S. Forest Service Centennial Congress was more than a birthday celebration for America’s oldest federal land management agency. It was an occasion to reflect on its past as a starting point for discussing the agency’s future. Delegates from industry, the environmental and academic communities, all sorts of user groups, and the agency’s partners in government at every level gathered to discuss what that future might hold and what their own stake in it might be. The proceedings demonstrate that there is a wealth of opinion about what the Forest Service should do with the public’s land and how it should do it—and even some question of whether the Forest Service should do it. They also make clear that the public’s commitment to conservation which led to the agency’s creation in 1905 is alive and well and will help guide the Forest Service as it embarks on its second century.

Steven Anderson is president and CEO of the Forest History Society.
ISBN softcover (0-89030-067-1): $24.95

Forest History Society, 2018. xiv + 156 pp., 24 images, 6 tables & graphs, 9 maps