The Bitterroot and Mr. Brandborg: Clearcutting and the Struggle for

Sustainable Forestry in the Northern Rockies

 

As supervisor of Montana’s Bitterroot National Forest from 1935 to 1955, G. M. Brandborg promoted the social and economic welfare of his beloved Bitterroot Valley through a program of selective cutting of mature trees. Seeking to protect watershed, wildlife habitat, and recreational use of the forest, he railed against the environmental destruction and economic dislocation that followed large-scale clear-cutting of forests.

 

Following his retirement, Brandborg became concerned that his agency was deviating from the practice of sustained-yield management of the forest’s timber lands, and led a highly visible public outcry that became known as the Bitterroot controversy. Brandborg’s behind-the-scenes lobbying contributed materially to the passage of the National Forest Management Act of 1976, the single most important law affecting public forestry since the creation of the Forest Service.

 

The Bitterroot and Mr. Brandborg articulates Brandborg’s Progressive-era idealism and is based on extensive archival research in collections throughout the Rockies and the Northwest, including the Brandborg family papers. Swanson’s crisp narration of how one national forest supervisor understood the intricate connection between the grasslands and forests under his care and the communities that were so dependent on these invaluable resources, opens a much larger story about the meaning of public lands in a democratic society.

Winner of the Western Writers of America Spur Award for Best Western Nonfiction-Contemporary.

 

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9781607811015 (hardback) $29.95
9781607819905 (ebook) $24.00