NEWS RELEASE

USDA Forest Service

Pacific Southwest Region

1323 Club Drive, Vallejo, CA 94592

Forest Service shield, which is the agency logo that links to the Regional News site.

Contact: Public Affairs, 707-562-9004

U.S. Forest Service Announces Release of New Book: “The Unmarked Trail: Managing National Forests in a Turbulent Era”

VALLEJO, Calif., Jan. 22, 2010—The Pacific Southwest Region Oral History project announces the release of a second volume of U.S. Forest Service retiree interviews. The new book is called The Unmarked Trail: Managing National Forests in a Turbulent Era. The era covers changes in the region from the 1960s to the 1990s. The first volume, The Lure of the Forest, covered the preceding decades and was published in 2005.

This six-year-old program is a partnership with Region 5, Forest Service retirees and the Regional Oral History Office (ROHO) of the University of California, Berkeley. The team conducted nearly 200 interviews. The full transcripts of most of these interviews are now being made available online at the ROHO Web site.

The Unmarked Trail is divided into four chapters, each covering a significant aspect of the Forest Service’s activities in California during times of intensive change, and with unprecedented scrutiny from the public, interest groups and Congress.

Chapters go into the rise and fall of the timber program, including controversies over clear cutting, herbicides and later spotted owls, which led to a rapid decline in timber harvest levels in the 1990s; the changing workforce; fires, including how the Forest Service has become a worldwide model for responding to all types of emergencies; and public relations, including how the Forest Service worked closely with Hollywood in the 1960’s to help craft a positive public image.

Filled with a variety of images, including portraits of the interviewees, the book captures the experiences of those Forest Service employees who lived and worked in a period of rapid social change. The overall impression that emerges is one of dedicated people who care deeply about the land and the Forest Service. How they found their way on this “unmarked trail” is the story that runs through this new book.

The online interviews and downloadable PDF copies of the books are located on the ROHO web site at: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/projects/usfs/

Both books are also available for purchase from Cornerstone Copies: 3132 Dwight Road Suite 700, Elk Grove, CA 95758-6456, email: files@cornerstonecopies.com, phone: (916) 393-9700

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