Word: dombeck
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...would be hard to find someone better qualified for the job than Dombeck. Born in the lake country of northern Wisconsin in 1948, he grew up in the Chequamegon National Forest--hunting, fishing and climbing fire towers. He was a fishing guide, taught high school science classes and earned a doctorate in fisheries biology before working his way up the ranks of the Forest Service. He became the science adviser for the Bureau of Land Management and in 1994 was selected to head the bureau--where he caught the eye of the White House...
...Dombeck has tried to cut a new path for the embattled agency. He forced out managers too closely allied with logging interests and began to wean the agency of its dependence on timber receipts. He reordered employee evaluations, putting greater emphasis on how staff members protected water and soil than on how much revenue they produced...
...roads and mines, however, that has made him a lightning rod for industry critics and their powerful congressional allies. "His objective is to terminate harvesting in the national forests," fumes Alaska's Frank Murkowski, chairman of the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Murkowski and others have grilled Dombeck in more than 20 hearings, demanded thousands of documents and ordered a major investigation of his agency...
...Dombeck, who has traveled more than his share of forest roads, agrees that they cause problems. But he's not a "zero cut" forester; he believes there's a place for the timber industry on federal lands. Without harvesting, he points out, forests become overgrown and can be destroyed as quickly by fires as they are by overlogging...
...deeper issue, of course, is what the forests are for. A resource for timber and mining companies? A wilderness where people can hunt, fish or hike? Or an ecosystem supporting the web of life? Dombeck hopes a plan being developed by a committee of scientists will offer a model of multipurpose, sustainable forest management. But pushing that plan through Congress and finding a way to finance it may be jobs so big that even Paul Bunyan couldn't pull them...