Tony Tooke, chief of the U.S. Forest Service since last fall, visited the Outdoor Retailer Snow Show last week, meeting with volunteers, partners and conservation groups as part of a mission to broaden the coalition of organizations, agencies and communities working to improve recreation on public lands. In a brief chat with The Denver Post, Tooke emphasized collaboration and partnerships as essential to meeting the array of challenges facing the National Forest’s wildlands. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
DP: How are you working to support recreation on public lands?
TT: One of the ideas I have identified is to enhance our recreation opportunities, improve access and sustain our infrastructure. We have challenges in being able to strengthen and enhance those opportunities. We have challenges of being able to maintain access and maintain infrastructure. We are looking at all kinds of ways to address that priority. One way we want to do that is to work in shared stewardship with our many partners, our many volunteers, other federal agencies, states, work with counties, work with communities. We just have a whole diverse range of partners when it comes to outdoor recreation, and we want to work in the spirit of shared stewardship. We want to work collaboratively to make a difference.
DP: The National Forests are struggling with insects, disease, the impacts of climate change and drought. How can you help improve the health of those lands?
TT: The National Forest System has 80 million acres at moderate to high risk, and a third of that 80 million is very high risk, so there’s a lot at stake. Again, the way to make a difference is work in shared stewardship with diverse partners — other federal agencies, states, counties, local communities, environmental and conservation groups, the timber and outdoor recreation industries, tribes and all kinds of groups. When we talk about improving the condition of the forest, we are talking about improving the landscapes that are home to so many recreational opportunities.
DP: For the past several years, ski areas in Colorado operating on Forest Service lands have sent record-setting rent payments to the U.S. Treasury. Some of our busiest forests, like the White River National Forest, which sent more than $20 million in ski area permit fees back to Washington last fiscal year, are seeing budget cuts while visitation soars. Do you support ski area fee retention, which could help forests keep more of the money harvested from resort operators on public land?
TT: We are open to ideas and we are open to solutions and listening to any idea or any proposal. We have a system that allows us to keep recreation fees to address operations and maintenance needs, and we want to put more money back into those busy areas.
DP: What are your hopes for a solution to funding fire fighting?
TT: This past year, 56 percent of our budget went to fire suppression. Current trends show it will be 67 percent by the year 2021. We are the only agency with this way of funding our natural disasters; our work on them comes out of our regular (budget). The conditions have worsened, so the fire seasons are worsening. The fire season is 70 days longer than it was 15 years ago. If you look at 2017, the fire season in some places is year-round. It began in October 2016 in the southeast, then it went to the southwest, the northwest, California, the northern Rockies and then back to California in December. When I stepped into this job, we had 75 to 80 large fires at a time of year when we normally have 25. So this is a big issue and it impacts recreation, wildlife, lands, law enforcement and the very forest management work we are doing to address disease and insects that raise the fire risk. There is a lot of bipartisan support, and members of Congress are working really hard to find a solution to fire funding and we have been working really hard. I’m optimistic a solution will be found.
