Forest Management
Shoshone National Forest is managed by the U.S. Forest Service, an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The forest is separated into five districts and has a staff of 145 employees. The annual operating budget is $15,000,000, with much of it from grants. The headquarters and a visitor center are in Cody, Wyoming and a smaller information center is in Lander, Wyoming. There are local ranger district offices in Cody, Dubois, and Lander.
As is true with all National Forests in the U.S., Shoshone National Forest practices conservation of resources, which ensures a sustainable flow of some raw materials from the forest, such as lumber for construction purposes and wood pulp for paper products. Additionally, mineral extraction through mining and oil and gas exploration and recovery are also conducted, though in Shoshone National Forest this has become less common due to a consensus to protect the natural surroundings. More common than logging and mining are the lease options that are offered to ranchers to allow them to graze cattle and sheep. The forest provides guidelines and enforces environmental regulations to ensure that resources are not overexploited and that necessary commodities are available for future generations, though conservation groups have voiced concerns over the management practices of the leasing program and especially cattle overgrazing problems.
The efforts of environmentalists combined with public demand led to the creation of wilderness designated zones beginning in 1964 within most U.S. Government land areas that fit the criteria of wilderness. The wilderness designation provides a much higher level of land protection and prohibits any alterations by man to the resource. In Shoshone National Forest, less than ten percent of the total area is utilized for land lease, logging or mineral extraction. The rest of the forest is either designated wilderness, reserved for habitat protection for plants and animals, or set aside for visitor recreation. However, the overgrazing of cattle in riparian areas and into zones not within lease agreements are continuous points of argument. Oil and gas exploration interest groups also lobby to explore regions that may adversely impact wildlife habitat. Plans to build roads into nonwilderness areas for easier extraction of timber have come under fire and are not in compliance with recent legislation that prohibits such construction. Illegal off-road motorized transport by all-terrain vehicles and snowmobiles continues to be a problem, especially in wilderness areas. Lastly, protection of threatened and endangered species such as the grizzly and wolf is sometimes met with opposition from local ranching interests.
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