What is the Forestry Service?

The Forestry Service is a government organization that deals with the management, protection, and conservation of a country’s forests, grasslands, and other wilderness areas. In most countries, the Forestry Service is concerned with both public and private land, and it deals with issues regarding land use, water quality, and the human impact on forest ecology.

Forestry Service employees might work within government bureaucracies to create policies regarding the sustainable and profitable use of forest products and public land, including logging, mining, grazing, and tourism. For example, timber in public forests is harvested and trees can be replanted for later harvest. The impact of grazing livestock on land and water quality is another issue under forest service management. Part of forest management is to maintain the integrity and quality of wilderness areas while maximizing the use of their commercial products.

In most countries, many Forestry Service employees are wardens who work to protect wilderness areas from immediate harm and damage. Wardens patrol tourist areas to help prevent fires, illegal removal or poaching of wildlife, or theft of forest products. These wardens are usually charged with some law enforcement capabilities, and violations are treated as criminal offenses.

Firefighters are also generally employed by forestry services around the world to prevent, contain, and put out fires on public and private land. In the US, fire prevention is one of the Forestry Service’s more visible jobs. In 1944, the US Forestry Service introduced the popular Smokey the Bear advertising campaign, which remains one of the most recognizable icons of American popular culture. Wildfire management and research is another aspect of Forestry Service work, where agencies work to understand the relationship of human impact on the forests and the types and severity of wildfires.

Another important aspect of Forestry Service work is conservation. On a local level, employees survey forest areas and report on their ecological health, and many forests around the world are protected areas for endangered species. Forestry workers might count and track flora and fauna populations, or they may work on disease prevention and control.

Forestry services around the world work together to share conservation technologies, to prevent further deforestation in countries that have already experienced much of it, and to control the import and export of non-native species of animals, plants, insects, and fungi that could negatively impact local ecology. Forestry services also participate internationally in creating and influencing policies about global climate change.