Resisting the Forest Service

It isn’t just environmental zealots who are up in arms about the U.S. Forest Service’s policies on managing the nation’s timber resources. The Association of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics has jumped into the fray—from the inside. Jeff DeBonis, the Association’s founder and executive director, worked for 12 years as a timber sale planner for the Forest Service in four different states. During that period he “grew disgusted at the total disregard for the survival of the ecosystem and the emphasis on selling timber rather than preserving biological diversity within our forests.” Sensing widespread frustration within the Service, he founded AFSEEE three years ago, running the group on the side initially, then leaving the Forest Service in 1990 to manage the Association full-time.

The Association works actively to reform Forest Service policies, expose abuses of environmental laws, and bring sustainable resource planning to the forefront of the Forest Service’s attention. AFSEEE publishes a bi-monthly newspaper,