Some of the Players

Larry Dawson is the Supervisor of the Clearwater National Forest. The forest is administered through four districts, each headed by a District Ranger, who reports to the Supervisor. The four districts are the Palouse, the North Fork, the Lochsa, and the Powell Ranger Districts. "People believe I have broad discretionary authority, an ability to manage these forests, when in fact, that's tempered by what the public is willing to allow me to do."

Dawson says that "some of the laws that are in place right now actually encourage people not to come and talk to us, not to come to the table and discuss things with people who see things differently. That makes it very difficult for me to do what I'd like to do, and at times for me to do anything out on the landscape."

"We have a legislated appeals process. And what that allows people to do is sit on the sidelines and watch the process, which some people are coming to the table and are honestly engaged trying to look for these very complex solutions to very difficult problems. And then when a solution is reached, our appeals process allows people to come in and torpedo the solution, to try to interject at that point their values and their concerns outside of any kind of honest resolution. I think that's wrong."

"There's not one correct way to manage a national forest. We're bounded by laws, we're bounded by nature, we're bounded by our ecosystem; but within those bounds we can manage our land a lot of different ways. We can manage it with fire, we can manage it with a chainsaw, or we can not manage at all. All of those are valid ways of managing a national forest. What's difficult is when people disagree. What's even more difficult is when we're dealing with paid warriors... people that are paid to disagree."