Ground Truth: Forest Service Research · Episode 8 of 10 · 37 min
How Restructuring Built the Modern Forest Service Research Network
The restructuring of Forest Service research is traced from a sprawl of regional experiment stations to today's five Research Stations, the Forest Products Laboratory and more than eighty experimental forests. Budget pressure drove mergers such as the 1997 Rocky Mountain Research Station and the 2006 Northern Research Station. Officials called it a trimming of overhead, and the episode presents the network as it stood just before the current upheaval.
Where it happens
- Fort Collins, ColoradoHeadquarters of the Rocky Mountain Research Station
- Newtown Square, PennsylvaniaHeadquarters of the Northern Research Station
- Madison, Wisconsin+3 more episodesHome of the Forest Products Laboratory
- Asheville, North Carolina+1 more episodeHeadquarters of the Southern Research Station
- Río Piedras, Puerto RicoHome of the International Institute of Tropical Forestry
Timeline
- 1926California Forest Experiment Station opens at UC Berkeley
- 1928McSweeney-McNary Act authorizes up to twelve regional stations
- 1992Forest Service first proposes merging Rocky Mountain and Intermountain stations
- May 1997Rocky Mountain Research Station created in Fort Collins
- 2006Northeastern and North Central stations merge into the Northern Research Station
Still debated
Counts of stations vary (five, six or seven) depending on what is included, and site totals drift from year to year. Whether the mergers merely trimmed administration or eroded research capacity is also argued.