Due to the significant changes that have occurred in Southern California over the past 100 years, it is crucial that steps are taken now to insure that current and future generations will be able to enjoy the treasure set aside for them over a century ago: the Cleveland, San Bernardino, Angeles, and Los Padres National Forests. The best way to do so is to change the classification and management of these public land trusts in a way that is consistent with the needs of an increasingly diverse and rapidly growing population.
These four Forests need to be viewed and managed for what they are, urban parks that provide citizens opportunities to renew their enthusiasm for life and land preserves that protect the valuable natural resources that permit citizens to do so. By continuing the current Department of Agriculture’s forest management model of multiple-use there is a significant danger these lands will be lost by multiple-degradation as they are exploited for a wide range of consumptive uses. Future generations will be forever grateful if we act now to manage the four National Forests in Southern California in a manner which will preserve and enhance their scenic, natural, and historical qualities. The National Chaparral Recreation Plan offers a way to do so.
Executive Summary
In a remarkable display of foresight and political courage, President Theodore Roosevelt withdrew millions of acres of federal land from unregulated commercial development and protected them for future citizens. Roosevelt’s Forest Reserve system demonstrated a rejection of the old model of resource exploitation without long-term vision and created instead the world’s largest public land protectorate to be held in trust for every single American.
Referring to this land trust, Jack Ward Thomas, Chief Emeritus of the US Forest Service, wrote, “These forests were all different but, in one critical sense, they were all the same. They belonged to me, to my children, and to all the American people for today, tomorrow, and forever – unless somehow, we allow this incredible birthright to be stolen or frittered away.”
There is a distinct possibility that this birthright may indeed be frittered away in the four National Forests of Southern California (the Cleveland, San Bernardino, Angeles, and Los Padres) because of improper management and planning by the Department of Agriculture. These four federal land trusts are different from all the others in the National Forest system because they are almost exclusively used for recreation by a growing population. In addition, these lands are not typically covered by forests at all but rather unique shrubland ecosystems, especially chaparral.
Since the passing of the Multiple-Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960, the guiding principle behind National Forest policy has been “to achieve quality land management under the sustainable multiple-use management concept to meet the diverse needs of people.” This includes grazing, timber production, hydroelectric dams, landfills, utility corridors, and other invasive activities. While the multiple-use doctrine may be a workable managementstrategy in some National Forests far from major cities, it is becoming an increasingly unsuccessful and contentious model for the four National Forests in Southern California, all heavily impacted by a rapidly growing population.
It is time to reclassify National Forest land in Southern California as special National Chaparral Recreation Areas so our families will always have a place to enjoy nature and the value of quiet, natural open space. In order to do so, the following steps need to be taken:
1. Return the land within the Cleveland, San Bernardino, Angeles, and Los Padres National Forests to the US Department of the Interior under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service.
2. Designate the Cleveland, Angeles, San Bernardino, and Los Padres National Forests as National Chaparral Recreation Areas (NCRA).
3. Develop a comprehensive plan to preserve the natural character of the four NCRAs, prevent further type-conversion of native plant communities, and to protect old-growth stands of chaparral (75 years and older).
4. Create ecologically-based fire management plans that consider the total fire environment in order to protect firefighters, natural resources, and surrounding human communities.
5. Create Natural History Education/Recreation Districts connected to each of the four new National Chaparral/Forest Recreation Areas.
An effort to examine the Angeles National Forest and the adjoining watershed as possible inclusion to the National Park system has been ongoing for the past few years. See the San Gabriel Watershed and Mountains Special Resource Study for further information.
