Jeanine Derby

Jeanine Derby grew up on her parent’s farm in rural Michigan, where she developed a love for open space. It is a disposition that serves Derby well in her current job assupervisor of the immense Los Padres National Forest.

Derby didn’t begin college until her two sons were in junior high school. In 1975, she graduated from UC Riverside with a degree in biology, intending to become a teacher. Instead she took a job studying plants for the San Bernardino National Forest.

It was the first of many jobs with the U.S. Forest Service, and in 1992, Derby was named supervisor of the Gila National Forest, based in Albuquerque, N.M. Then last summer, Derby’s dream to return to Southern California came true when she got the job with Los Padres.

Los Padres covers 1.75 million acres along the California Central Coast, including more than 500,000 acres in Ventura County. It is one of the largest national forests in the lower 48 states, as well as one of the most diverse. More than 800,000 acres of the forest are designated wilderness, meaning they are off limits to development.

Los Padres also provides a number of resources. Water is the most important--most of Ventura County’s water flows from the forest. There are modest oil and gas reserves under the forest, and it also supplies grazing land for ranchers. Most people know the forest for its recreational opportunities, including hiking, camping, fishing, hunting and off-highway vehicle use.

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Question: Are you surprised by the anger the Adventure Pass, which requires forest visitors to pay $5 a day or $30 per year, has generated?

Answer: No. For a long time, people have taken for granted that their national forests were supported by their federal taxes.

But it has come to the point where there is no longer enough money. So the choice is either stop providing some of the recreational opportunities and let some places become trashed, or ask people to help pay for them.

Congress is very specific about the kind of things they will fund us for and, to this point, recreation has not been very high on the list. If Congress authorizes [a fee program] after a couple of years--and it will--I think we will have some opportunities to try things that might fit better in the Los Padres.

Q: There are some groups and people who accuse the Forest Service of causing considerable environmental damage with its timber program--as well as losing millions of dollars. They feel that the Adventure Pass adds insult to this injury. What do you say to them?

A: We spend the money the way Congress tells us to spend it. I can understand how people have conflicting values about it.

But there are groups who have portrayed the timber program in ways that are not always accurate. The other thing that responsible people have to realize is that there is a market for wood products in the United States. And if we are not getting the wood from the U.S., then we are getting it from countries that have less control over the environmental consequences of logging than we have.

There are people who don’t like to have trees cut, period. That’s a fine value system, but you have to have a replacement product for those trees before you can responsibly transition to a different kind of economy.

Now, it is a fact that recreation in the forests is growing tremendously, and the value of the national forests for supporting recreation is something that is just beginning to be recognized. And the social values of the country are shifting--the ability to go someplace where no one has gone before, so to speak, is increasingly important to people who have less and less opportunity in urban environments to get away from it all.

But it costs money to keep the forests healthy, to do things like protect them from vandalism, to ensure that trash is collected and to make sure the toilet facilities are kept up. That is what we are asking them to help pay for with the Adventure Pass.

Q: What kind of things have people indicated they would like the Adventure Pass money spent on?

A: This year, because of the storms, access has been a big issue. People say, “We’ve paid our money and there are so many places we can’t get to.” In fact, we are putting some of our Adventure Pass money into trail maintenance. We have hired several crews and we are also paying our people to work with volunteer crews.

In some cases, people are asking for money to be spent on improving a favorite place they have always gone to. We try to accommodate those interests--I don’t think that we’ve had a request that we could not respond to in some way. The money gets spread thinly, so not everything gets done to the standard that everyone would ultimately like it.

Q: Mike Dombeck, the Forest Service chief, has taken a lot of heat from Congress because he has said repeatedly that the health of our forests must come first. What do you think of him?

A: I think he has taken some very courageous steps. My hope is that he will ultimately succeed, but right now he is having a very tough time in Congress.

Again, it’s change. This is the first time that someone has stepped forward and said that managing water and recreation are the important things in managing national forests--that has always kind of been in the background. He is taking a lot of risk doing that, but I think he’s on the right track. The economics of the country are shifting [to recreation] and economics often determine success.

Q: What are some of the challenges facing the health of the forest?

A: There are natural disease and insect cycles in some trees. We try to address the problem by selectively removing the trees to prevent the disease from spreading. If the forest was managed as an entirely natural system, the disease would spread. Because we manage for recreation experience as a high value, we try to limit the extent of disease pockets and insect infestations.

Q: How is the water quality?

A: Up and down the coast, people don’t always realize that the forest is where their water is coming from when they turn on the faucet. We think that when the water is delivered to the forest boundary, it is pretty safe. In between the boundary and the ocean, there are pollution problems, the reason beaches are sometimes closed. It’s a community problem and we need to see if there are some solutions we can help with.

Q: How do you explain the value of the wilderness areas to forest visitors?

A: Wilderness does not just provide a visual expanse, it provides a continuity of habitat up and down the Central Coast that will always be a refuge for things that maybe don’t have space someplace else. Even if someone never visits the wilderness, the land will be cared for in a way so that it’s preserved for their grandchildren and beyond.

Q: Will there be any more oil exploration or drilling within the forest?

A: Yes. Oil and gas are a major part of the resources that we manage and provide. This summer we are expecting to release a draft of an environmental impact statement to cover all the leasable potential sites in the forest. It will provide for protection of the land, as well as access [to oil and gas].

Q: Will you allow oil drilling within the wilderness areas?

A: There will absolutely be no surface occupancy allowed for oil drilling within the wilderness areas. If there were high potential values to some oil reserves, and if a company wanted to put the expense into directional drilling, it might be possible.

Q: What role will Los Padres and the other national forests in Southern California play in our future?

A: I don’t think the average citizen realizes what a treasure the Los Padres and the other forests are. Something I would like to be a part of is getting people to think in terms longer than just their lifetime. To think about what is here and why it’s important. To keep it in the right condition, so all the many values that come from it are sustained into the future.