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This sickens me.

The Forest is coming off their big centennial celebration, touted their 
proud history of "caring for the land and serving people."  They even made a 
movie about it"The greatest good" based on Gifford Pinchot's idea of the 
"greatest good for the greatest number in the long run."

Now, they are pimping out "small isolated parcels" of Public lands to the 
highest bidder to pay for a dying program.  If this really were about 
children and the future - I think that the higher benefit would be in making 
sure that our public lands are totally protected to that future generations 
can have unspoiled lands that will be there forever and are immune to being 
sold any time the government gets a whim and oversteps their fiscal bounds.

Now, in my mind this whole thing started as a bill to help pay for hurricane 
Katrina recovery.  I am sure that all of you are completely aware of the 
vast amounts of dollars that have been hemmoraged toward this disaster.  
Rather than making sure that an effecient and dollar wise system was in 
place to actually help victims, money was just pushed at the problem and was 
spent very very unwisely.  I know, I was there and saw it first hand.  The 
bill pretty much died, but it appears to have planted the seed that selling 
FS lands is OK.

No-one would dream of selling Park Service lands because the general public 
has a "sacred" mentality about them.  Most people have the misconception 
that Forest Service lands are nothing but timber plantations and are 
expentable.  I live in GA - most of the public lands in GA that people 
recreate on are Forest Service, but if you ask someone where they are at 
they would say "the national park"  I think that politicians are taking 
advantage of this and trying to slip this in under the radar.  The 
Chattahoochee-Oconee has 5,000 acres for potential sale.  Now, those of you 
who are familiar with that forest, please tell me how many of those parcels 
will be isolated and of little use.  You know how mountain land is booming.  
This sale will bring premium prices and will help developers build more 
mountain getaways on former public lands.  UGGGGHHHH!

In my mind, the Forest Service is a dying agency unless some things change.  
They are trying to run under a "corporate model" which in my mind means less 
people doing more and more work.  They think that they can manage our public 
lands with a skeleton crew.  Poor fiscal management and a lack of "brand 
recognition" have left national forests with dwindling budgets and 
shortsighted policies.  They are no longer a big picture organization.  They 
can barely see past this year's budget.  It is very very sad to me.

I think their new slogan should be "We're listening, but we don't care"

Sorry about the rant.

Mel

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