You might think that an agency dedicated to conservation would be ahead of the curve when it comes to having eco-friendly operations.
But the U.S. Forest Service, just as many of us ordinary folks, has only recently come to a realization of how much it can do to change its habits and conserve resources.
This past week, at a national conference held in Denver, the agency launched its nationwide effort to integrate sustainability into its day-to-day operations.
The changes, big and small, came out of a “green” movement started here in the Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain region.
It’s going to take a while to turn around a bureaucracy as large and entrenched as the Forest Service, but the energy and enthusiasm of those involved is laudable and shows an introspective quality that you don’t often see in government.
“I think somehow, as part of society, we got complacent,” said Rick Cables, Rocky Mountain regional forester. “We didn’t notice. We didn’t think about it.”
Now, they are looking at a spectrum of ways to reduce what they call the service’s environmental footprint. They are examining whether they need to have so many four-wheel-drive vehicles, how they can pinch energy consumption in every office and heightening awareness about the wastefulness of bottled water.
The changes come largely as a result of the energetic and persistent efforts of Anna Jones-Crabtree, who was a recent engineering graduate when she joined the the Forest Service in 1992 and was stationed in Delta. She has made it her mission to figure out all sorts of ways to save resources.
For instance, the service has begun using GOOS notebooks, which stands for “good on one side.” Instead of hauling all white paper to the recycler, they’re binding them for notebooks for internal use. They buy fewer notebooks and they save the energy that would be used to recycle the paper.
First, they must measure the service’s impact. They’re asking questions such as: How many miles do we drive? How much water do we use? How much “green” purchasing do we do, such as buying recycled paper?
The next phase will be to set targets for improvement.
The folks from the Rocky Mountain region have support from the upper echelon of the Forest Service for the effort.
“It really is fitting for a national resource management agency with a conservation ethic,” said Joel Holtrop, the service’s deputy chief of the national forest system.
It’s heartening to see a government agency embrace an green ethic that is good for the environment and for the taxpayer’s pocketbook. It just makes sense. It would be wonderful to see other agencies make the same commitment to change.
