WASHINGTON — It was time for him to go.
Mike Dombeck counts a list of accomplishments from his four years as Forest Service chief. He helped remove a controversial link between public school funds and federal timber sale revenues. He set up forest-planning rules that put ecology ahead of social and economic uses for the land.
And he created a policy that banned new logging and road construction in a third of the federal forest lands, 58.5 million acres, a key environmental legacy of the Clinton administration.
As the Bush administration took aim at the road ban and his forest-planning rules, Dombeck was calm. He said he was ready to move on, and so is the Forest Service, under a new administration.
"Bush won," he said just before a hike on a sunny Washington afternoon--miles but worlds away from his old office. "What's the point if they want to take the agency in a different direction? It was time for me to move on."
But his legacy is quickly being undone. The ban on road-building won't take effect because of a decision by an Idaho federal judge to block the rule. Environmentalists pledge to appeal.
The Bush administration had planned to let the ban take effect and later revise it to allow more input from local interests--ideally to allow roadless decisions on a forest-by-forest basis. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, who oversees the agency, said that would be a more "balanced" approach.
But Dombeck, and the conservationists who often supported him, are worried that revisions may mean a reversal.
"If this administration goes ahead and spends its energy on doing things like rolling back roadless [protections] . . . what they are going to find in four years is that they have no legacy," Dombeck said. "The last four years are going to set the agenda for the next four years."
Dombeck grew up on the Chequamegon National Forest in northern Wisconsin and has a PhD in fisheries biology. Newly married, he took a job with the Forest Service in 1978.
"We thought, what the heck; let's try it. At least we'll get to see some beautiful places," Dombeck said.
Since then he's been to every state in the union, the Amazon, Turkey, Mexico and China.
He's flown with President Clinton to see the destruction from last year's wildfires that blackened about 7 million acres. He's been grilled by U.S. senators who thought he favored conservation.
