Black Hills National Forest

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Black Hills National Forest
IUCN Category VI (Managed Resource Protected Area)

Location:	South Dakota, USA
Nearest city:	Rapid City, SD
Coordinates:	43°56′11″N, 103°43′26″W
Area:	1.2 million acres (4,856 km²)
Established:	February 22, 1897
Governing body:	U.S. Forest Service

Black Hills National Forest is located in the western sections of the U.S. state of South Dakota. The forest has an area of over 1.2 million acres (4,856 km²) and is managed by the Forest Service. Predominantly ponderosa pine the Forest also includes hard woods like aspen, bur oak, and birch. The lower elevations include grassland prairie, but the National Forest System lands encompass most of the mountainous region known as the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming. Within the forest is Harney Peak which is the tallest mountain in South Dakota and the highest peak east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States. After a series of devastating wildfires in 1893, U.S. President Grover Cleveland created the Black Hills Forest Reserve on February 22, 1897. Upon the creation of the Forest Service in 1905, the reserve was transferred to the new agency under the United States Department of Agriculture and redesignated as a National Forest two years later. Lakota words Paha Sapa meaning "hills that are black" may be one of the factors in the regions naming. Early settlers and explorers called the Laramie Range the Black Hills prior to Lt. G. K. Warren's expedition in 1857. Prior to explorations by the La Verendrye brothers in 1742, many tribes frequented the Black Hills including Ponca, Kiowa Apache, Arapaho, Kiowa and Cheyenne for at least the past 10,000 years. The small pox epidemics of 1771 to 1781 broke the wall of the Arikara who prior to that time held the Sioux east of the Missouri. American Horse's winter count of 1775-76 is interpreted as depicting the Sioux discovery of the Black Hills (Raymond J. DeMallie, Jr - 2006). The mountains and other key features in and around the Black Hills and now within the Forest were considered sacred to indigenious peoples and many came here on vision quests, for hunting and for trade.

Fire tower atop Harney Peak

Although surrounded by Black Hills National Forest, both Jewel Cave National Monument and Mount Rushmore National Memorial are separate areas administered by the National Park Service. Wind Cave National Park, which is another area administered by the National Park Service, borders portions of the forest in the southeast. Black Elk Wilderness is a wilderness within the Forest and no motorized transport is permitted. Outside of the wilderness, mining, logging, and ranching are permitted on public lands through land leases with companies and private parties, referred to as "permittees."

While ponderosa pine is the most common tree species found in the forest, spruce can be found in the higher elevations. Rocky Mountain Elk, mule deer, Antelope and white-tailed deer are commonly seen. black bears do not exist in the Black Hills. Mountain lion are increasing dramatically as a result of prolific herds of deer and elk. Coyote, bighorn sheep and mountain goats are also frequently seen. Bald eagles, hawks, Osprey, Peregrine Falcons and another 200 species of birds can be found in the forest, especially along streams and near water sources.

30 campgrounds are located in the forest and there are 11 reservoirs that are well stocked for sport fishing. 450 miles (725 km) of hiking trails provide access to more remote destinations and to the summit of Harney Peak. With over 5,000 miles of Forest system roads, the Forest is also a haven for motorized travel.

The Forest is located immediately west and south of Rapid City and can accessed off of Interstate 90. The forest headquarters is located in Custer, South Dakota. The Peter Norbeck National Scenic Byway passes through the forest in proximity to Mount Rushmore and along with the Spearfish Canyon National Forest Scenic Byway, provide two of the more scenic drives in the Country.

The following original material was written by Franklin Otis Carroll, fcarroll@fs.fed.us, 605-673-9200. This history is in the public domain, and may be used without permission. I am a senior staff officer for the Black Hills National Forest and would be happy to discuss this material with anyone. Much of the photography in the searchable photo gallery www.blackhillsforest.com is in the public domain (Photographers Gary C. Chancey and Franklin O. Carroll are government photographers). Some of the images are copyrighted by the photographer and those images are marked appropriately (Karne Wattenmaker and Kari Greer).

- “The object of forestry is to discover and apply the principles according to which forests are best managed.” Gifford Pinchot, A Primer of Forestry, 1899 - - When Gifford Pinchot famously wrote these opening words to the first of two books that would launch the practice of scientific forestry in the United States , he had no idea how generations of Americans would come to view the public forests, nor did he know how strongly politics would influence the definition of “best managed.” What he did know was that he was on the right track, first defining and then actively managing one of America’s greatest natural assets, her vast and much abused forests. - - Among the objects of his particular attention was the now well-known range of the Black Hills of South Dakota and eastern Wyoming. The gold mining that fired the engines of commerce and settlement in the Black Hills depended on the “nearly pure forest” of ponderosa pine found there. By 1897, 42 sawmills were operating within what is now the exterior boundary of Black Hills National Forest supplying mine timbers, railroad ties, firewood, and saw logs, cutting only the best trees and taking only the clearest logs. Over 50 percent of the cut tree was left in the woods, leaving a wasteland of dead and unused timber. This situation offended Pinchot but not more so than other egregious forest practices across the country. - - Pinchot dispatched Henry S. Graves to the Black Hills in 1897 to inventory the forest and to assess its usefulness and capacity to grow trees. What Pinchot and Graves had in mind for the Black Hills was the application of scientific forestry to “produce forest products in as short a time as possible.” Graves’ report was not overly hopeful. He found the trees to be “very small for a pure pine forest” and that “timber large enough for saw lumber can not be produced in under 150 years” by the standard of the time. Graves correctly predicted that the timber industry would, in time, begin processing smaller and smaller trees. He felt the forests of the Black Hills could me made productive by fighting fires – which he surmised were responsible for much of the forest damage in the area – and by other forest management means, and he believed that “with a forest service, the most hearty cooperation of settlers would be secured” toward those ends. - - Graves understood that large fires, “the majority” of which he believed were set by American Indians, played a pivotal role in the life of the forest. But he saw it as a destructive role that could be managed and changed. He saw old growth trees with cat faces (fire damage to the butt of the tree) and concluded that the absence of fire would promote vigorous healthy stands of undamaged trees, along the Swiss or German models of forest management. - - To Graves orderly mind, the widely diverse and uneven-aged forest he surveyed was “irregular and broken, and composed in many places of defective and scrubby trees,” “trees of every age class” and “large areas where there are no trees.” He saw this widely diverse situation as chaotic and reprehensible, and he was convinced that he and his foresters could turn the tide and establish a uniform and productive forest to meet the objectives described by his superior, Pinchot. - - A certain uniformity of the Black Hills National Forest was achieved, at least for a while, but at great cost and in an unsustainable way that would color management for decades to come. The constant fires of history had formed a vigorous and sustainable forest, a fire environment in which more than 20 percent of all fires were stand replacing and where the old trees grew old and prospered because of the meritorious biological effects of fire. In fact, these men saw the sparse and widely spaced old growth not as individual survivors and icons of a 10,000 year forest process, but rather as indicators of what could be grown on these forested lands with the right amount of care and management. They reasoned that one grand old tree could be replicated many times on the same acre with the right kind of management. - - Black Hills biographers consistently described the area as being covered by “very dense” forests of pine trees. Graves documented “very dense” as meaning 150 to 200 trees per acre. “Very dense” today means 500 to more than 3,000 trees per acre. Figure 1 illustrates a plot from the Graves assessment compared to a similar plot today. The Black Hills forest of the past was less dense and older than the forest today. There were more openings and much more diversity in forest age and structure. Fires burned 30,000 to 70,000 acres each year, more than 20 percent of which were stand-replacing. - - When Graves began his assessment in 1897 the Black Hills were already well settled with a population of more than 40,000 people, mostly miners, ranchers, and settlers. The dark and forbidding horizon that had been unfamiliar to plains travelers before 1870 offered difficult passage and unclear rewards. Gold, which made all things possible, spurred settlement, at first illegally when Sioux treaty rights were violated by eager prospectors, and then legally when the government decided the Black Hills were too important and too rich in resources to be left to tribes who had the temerity to go to war with the United States Army and General Custer over ownership of the Black Hills. - - Sacred Ground - - In the summer of 1865 thousands of American Indians from many tribes including Crow, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Sioux – all ten nations of the Sioux – were in the Black Hills, singly and in small bands, communing with the Great Spirit, beseeching his pity, and seeking visions. - - The Sioux were newcomers to the Hills. Originally hunters on the plains east of the Missouri River, they acquired guns from French and English traders coming from the north east and Canada, but they did not get horses until after the Pueblo revolt of 1680 made horses widely available across the southern Great Plains and eventually into the hands of the Sioux via the Lipan Apache in the southern plains. Guns and horses combined with widespread small pox epidemics in 1771-1781 to break the wall of enemy tribes including the many villages of Arikaras who blocked the Sioux advance to the West. The Sioux crossed the river and explored West toward the Big Horns and the Powder River, pushing other tribes in front of them. American Horse’s winter count for 1775 to 1776 is interpreted as depicting the Sioux discovery of the Black Hills. They were nomads living in separate family groups and perfectly adapted to the seasons of the buffalo and excelling in warfare for dominance of the resources of the Great Plains. And while they were not owners of land, they quickly became the masters of the Black Hills and the territory between the Missouri River and the Powder River (what would become the Great Sioux Reservation). - - For the tribes these Paha Sapa, or Hills that are Black, were and are the literal center of the earth, the place where human beings were first created, the First Gathering of the Stone, Eden, from where the hoop of the world bends to the four directions. On the western boundary in what is now Wyoming lays Inyan Kara, a misspelling of Inyan Kagha [pronounced EE-yahn KAH-ga], the Holy Mountain, the place that is the womb of the woman, the place where the Indian people pray in thanksgiving for everything the Creator has given them, especially for the birth of children. While the sweat lodge is the symbol of renewal for men, the Holy Mountain serves that purpose for women. It is the place where the past, present, and future of the people are fused and come together in one sacred place. The Big Race began at Inyan Kara and The Race Track, a formation of red clay and stone that surrounds the Black Hills, was the site of a primordial race between the birds (two-legged), representing human kind, and animals (four-legged). The birds won, establishing the natural order by which people kill buffalo and other game for food. - - Pioneers moving up the North Platte River missed these Black Hills altogether and called the Laramie Range the Black Hills instead. Long after the Westward migration started, the Black Hills of South Dakota were Indian Country, unknown and unwanted. As late as 1868 the government in Washington could see no particular use for the Hills so they gave to the Tribes what the Tribes wanted, the Great Sioux Reservation as unceded territory, that they might occupy and hold the Black Hills, all of current South Dakota west of the Missouri River, and access to the hunting grounds of the Powder River country and the Big Horns (as long as buffalo held out) as their own forever, with no white men allowed except by tribal consent. By signing the Treaty of 1868 the Tribes felt that at least the most important places were held safe and sacred. In part the treaty said, “No white persons shall be permitted to settle upon or occupy any portion of the territory, or without the consent of the Indians to pass through the same.” - - In 1869 a group of Sioux attacked the Cheyenne at Battle Mountain near Hot Springs, South Dakota for control of the sacred geothermal water there that was believed to have great healing power. The following year the Sioux made peace with the Cheyenne and agreed that the springs, being sacred to many, should be open to all. - - But the white men were many and their lust for land and gold was unquenchable. The presence of gold in the Black Hills was known for many years when, in 1873, rumors of gold in the Black Hills reached larger populations and brought first a trickle and then a flood of miners to Custer and Deadwood and Hill City. Spotted Bear, a Sioux chief, trying to explain to a peace commission in 1876 the value of the Hills to Indian people, told them he wanted “$70 million dollars for the Black Hills” to be put in the bank drawing interest so Indians could buy all they needed of food and supplies if the Black Hills were taken from them. “The Black Hills are our bank,” he told the men from Washington. Miners were robbing the bank. And the man sent to stop the white miners from occupying the Black Hills merely affirmed the presence of gold. The Indians knew him as the “big thief,” George Armstrong Custer, who built an illegal road into the Hills for other thieves to use as far as the Indians were concerned. - - When the government’s treaty failed to stop immigration into the Hills, a government peace commission tried to buy the Black Hills from the tribes. The tribal leaders would not hear of it. They were not prepared to give up their nomadic life ways, they did not understand much of what was proposed in the treaties, and they had no political machinery to enforce treaty provisions in any event. Instead, after a council of Sioux, Cheyenne and related tribes at Bear Butte, they left for the Powder River and Yellowstone country in the spring of 1876, to the Rosebud and the Little Big Horn (Greasy Grass) Rivers, to find the last of the buffalo herds and to live the old way. When they got there, they found the Army coming after them in three columns. The Indians defeated Crook’s column on the Rosebud River and then turned to the Little Big Horn, and there they met Custer. In a single sharp fight the allied tribes killed Custer and most of his command. Custer’s last stand was all about the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming. Out of ammunition, the warriors left the Little Big Horn to General Terry and his main column, and left forever the free life of the Plains Indian. - - The treaty of 1868 had prohibited white people from entering these Black Hills without the express permission of Indian peoples. And though the United States Supreme Court later held that the treaty was legal at the time, the Congress can and does change or abrogate treaties and treaty rights at will, and so government actions in the aftermath of Sitting Bull’s and Crazy Horse’s war against those who would take the Hills and all their treasure ensured that the Tribes were effectively evicted from the Black Hills. The Indians never gave anyone permission to be here, not then, not now, not ever. - - Settlement - - “This country will be a good one for settlers as soon as the Indian can be got rid of,” wrote Richard Irving Dodge in his account of the Black Hills from an Army reconnaissance of the area in 1875. The year before, in 1874, Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer took the Seventh Cavalry on an exploration of the Black Hills, both to assess what resources were there and to expel illegal squatters from the Indian reserved lands. With Custer went photographer William H. Illingsworth to record the scenery. The resulting photography would be used in the following century to help foresters understand what changes had occurred in the Black Hills over time. - - Dodge reported that his “delightful pic-nic” through the Black Hills affirmed that the area was “a true oasis in a wide and dreary desert” and that the Black Hills were, “in many respects, the finest country I have ever seen.” Dodge downplayed the importance of gold and the ability of most men to find meaningful amounts of gold, but he touted the areas rich potential for settlers of all kinds and did much to showcase the area for Civil War veterans and others looking for a new life on the frontier as the Eastern population grew uncomfortably large. - - But gold, sacred gold, gold that settled so many last, best, Western places so quickly, had done its work. Settlement did not take long. By 1897 most of the now famous Black Hills communities like Deadwood and Custer, Hill City and Rapid City were well established. Tourism was beginning to take hold and mining for deep ore underground had replaced placer mining in area streams. - - White settlers stood on the verge of everywhere making the wilderness to “blossom as the rose,” wresting Eden from the howling wilderness of the unsettled West, even as Indian peoples were mourning the loss of the great larder of the Sioux Nations and their allies. For at least 1,000 years people of the plains came to the Black Hills to hunt and fish and to supply feed for their horses from the wildlife, pure water, and abundant wood to be found there. While Indians did not settle in the Hills permanently, evidence of their summer camps was everywhere when Custer and Dodge entered the area. - - Dodge was moved to write about the number of Indian graves he encountered. Later writers, particularly Lakota writers from Pine Ridge, would affirm Dodge’s observations that the Black Hills were sacred ground. The usual wars colored the many tribal claims to the Hills from Crow, Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Sioux and their related, affiliated, and enemy tribes. From the Army’s perspective, all Indians were the same and had to be dealt with if orderly settlement was to continue. The Black Hills were first formally ceded to the tribes by the Treaty of 1868. Those same Hills were then taken from the tribes forcibly after the 1876 war with Generals Terry, Crook, and Custer. A government restitution fund, presented long years after settlement of the Black Hills was accomplished, sits in the bank today, having amassed more than $600 million dollars for the Tribes if they will consent to take it in exchange for the Black Hills. No tribe has agreed to do so. - - To the Indians (and the Irish before 600 AD), the concept of “sacred place” encompasses an entire area and all things in it (rocks, trees, animals, air, fire), not a specific cathedral or cemetery, for example. To Indian eyes, the Black Hills are sacred in total and should remain undefiled by anything other than temporarily and of necessity taking food and resources for human use. Tribal members would not enter the area without first performing a cleansing ceremony to make them worthy to go there. White settlement of the Black Hills contrasted in every way with this notion of sacredness and does so still. - - What the two groups of people share today is a common understanding that these Hills are special. It is often left to the Forest Service to arbitrate between conflicting needs and values, including the most sacred values of entire peoples. And in recent years the Forest Service has aggressively worked to make native people feel at home again in the sacred Black Hills. - - Early settlement invited Forest Service participation from the beginning. Mining in the Hills, particularly the deep underground mines of Deadwood and Lead, required vast amounts of wooden beams and posts for mine timbers, thousands of tons of wood for fuel, and lumber to build structures in support of the mines. In a few short years the Homestake Mine had used all the timber within eight miles of Deadwood. Small sawmill operations sprang up across the hills, shipping lumber to the mines and providing lumber to build ever increasing communities and homesteads. - - People who lived in the Black Hills became accustomed to taking what they needed, when they needed it, and wood was wasted by inefficient practices. Old forests were cut down and new ones grew up. None of the activity of forest exploitation was managed in any way, alarming people whose vision was far seeing and who understood that sustainable forests were desirable in the Hills. It was no accident that among the very first forests to attract the gaze of forest science reformers was this isolated forest, this island on the plains where gold and fine land attracted increasing numbers of people with increasing demands on all the area’s natural resources. - - - The Forest Service Arrives - - - Pinchot and Graves studied these Hills to discover what needed to happen to ensure a continuing supply of timber, clean water, and the other important values that forests provide. But getting from the idea of a forest service to the reality of a Forest Service was messy and instructive. Congress recognized the importance of forests as early as 1873 when it passed the Timber Cultural Act. Settlers were taming the vast plains but not adding significantly to forested lands. The Act of 1873 required settlers to plant one fourth of each 160 acre homestead to trees. The Public Lands Commission established in 1879 recommended setting aside public lands valuable for timber and water production as forest reserves. By March of 1891 the President was given the power to establish forest reserves from public land. - - A Division of Forestry was created in the Department of Agriculture in June 1886, which established a platform for public lands protection, especially for forests, and led to the passage of the Forest Reserves Act of 1891. President Harrison established the Yellowstone Timberland Reserve on March 30, 1891. The Forest Reserve Act was intended to protect Federal public lands from fire, over logging, and to preserve watersheds. The Department of the Interior first had responsibility for overseeing these lands, a fact that did not change until February 1, 1905 when 63,000,000 acres were transferred fro USDI to USDA. The Forest Service was established on March3, 1905. - - In the beginning forest reserves were treated as closed areas where no activity was allowed. People across the west took issue with the notion of reserves of anything protected from use and especially to government intervention in the burgeoning natural resource-based economy of the West. In what was surely one of the first public meetings held on land management issues, a mass meeting of the people of Deadwood on February 27, 1897 protested the “disastrous effects of the Black Hills Forest Reserve on mining, timber, population growth, and firewood supply.” The Black Hills National Forest was established on February 22. The following year President McKinley formalized the idea of multiple-use of forest resources. With funding that finally came available on July 1, 1898, Forest Supervisor H. G. Hanamaker of Indiana arrived in Custer where he made his headquarters. - - Hanamaker hired 20 rangers to protect the new reserve in May of 1899 from an applicant pool of 219 people. He established twenty ranger districts of about two and one half townships each and almost immediately had to cut the number of rangers to 14 due to lack of funds. His staff was already overwhelmed with the number of timber sale applications pending and he was falling behind. Timber sales were approved in the Washington office where permits were issued (the process to approve the very first timber sale took almost two years!). There was no cutting allowed without a permit. - - Already in 1898 when Homestake Mining Company petitioned the government to buy 1000 acres of timber to support mining operations, the timber industry in the Black Hills was characterized by low costs and low profits. The government, represented by Hanamaker, and Homestake, represented by Mr. Grier, agreed to come together and make the timber sale process work. This was a milestone in many ways. Westerners were deeply suspicious of any government attempt to regulate anything. To step up and agree to allow the government to regulate what had been free timber, and then to pay the government for the privilege, made for a difficult cultural transition in the Black Hills. But 18 months later Homestake was cutting in the sale area and Case Number 1 was the new model for timber sales on public lands everywhere. By 1908, 15 million board feet were cut 5100 cords of wood were also removed. Horses and oxen did the work. Timber purchasers at this time began the time honored tradition of howling at the length of time it takes to get a timber sale through the system. It was the beginning of sustained yield logging in America’s forest reserves. - - Seth Bullock became the second supervisor. Seth was a friend of President Theodore Roosevelt and he promptly set about decentralizing forest reserve decisions and bringing decision making closer to the ground. In this effort he enjoyed the full support of the President, an early indicator of the kind of power and influence forest supervisors in the Black Hills would wield to the present day. - - In creating the new Forest Service in the USDA, Pinchot would weld the political fortunes of America’s forests to America’s farmers, understanding that power over natural resources was held by agriculture interests. United, these two resurgent forces in American political life continued to dominate natural resource and environmental policy through the next century. Pinchot understood that the Forest Service would get lost in the massive Interior Department and took steps accordingly. - - In January 1908 a major reorganization of the Forest Service placed supervision of the Black Hills National Forest under the Regional Forester at Denver in Region 2, the Rocky Mountain Region. Other significant changes had taken place including the creation of Wind Cave National Park, Devil’s Tower National Monument, and Jewel Cave National Monument. The Bearlodge National Forest was created on March 1, 1907 with headquarters in Sundance, WY. The Sundance National Forest was created from the Bearlodge National Forest in July 1908, and President Taft created the Harney National Forest out of the Black Hills National Forest on May 16, 1910. The northern half of the Black Hills forest remained the Black Hills National Forest with headquarters at Deadwood. The Sundance and Black Hills merged in 1910. - - The Black Hills became a lightning rod for nationally important issues and their resolution by the new agency. Grazing allotments, cattle/sheep conflicts, and grazing fees first surfaced here. The Chief of the Forest Service personally presided over a public meeting in July 1909 in which grazing fees and allotments and the proper management of cattle and sheep were negotiated and accepted. Most ranchers and stockmen came to believe that the Forest Service offered the best chance for law and order in these often deadly issues. The meeting lasted two days, the first day until midnight. Forest rangers advertised the meeting widely and everyone who had anything to say was welcome. Pinchot banned sheep grazing from the Black Hills because of the damage they did to young trees. Modern rangers may view sheep as an opportunity to restrict natural reforestation. - - - Responsibility and Leadership - - - This forest is not like other forests in the national forest system [NFS]. There are historic, cultural, political, social and practical reasons why this is so. The forest area is rather small at 1.2 million acres and very isolated, being the only major contiguous forested area in South Dakota. As such, people in South Dakota and across the Mid-West think of the Black Hills as the beginning (and often the end) of the Great West. And the compelling history of communities like Deadwood and Lead (“Leed”) further this view. - - The importance of the Hills historically and currently for spiritual sustenance and as a provider of things both necessary (meat, wood) and desired (gold, summer cabins) can be said to have never diminished in the history of North America. - - The intensity of cultural feelings about ownership of the area continues to cause significant rifts in cross-cultural relations between peoples. Tribes consider the Hills to be theirs by right and in fact. Private ownership in the Black Hills has left the forest as one of the least contiguous NFS land areas in the system, meaning that thousands of private inholders have a personal and emotional stake in forest management strategies of their larger neighbors. This picture complicates forest management strategies and tactics. - - Politically, the forest has managed to avoid or stay somewhat detached from other major social and cultural trends that have had such an enormous impact on management activities on most national forests. Protected by a united Federal delegation, forest managers are able to command resources and assistance not always available to other forests. As important is the devotion local people have to the Hills and their satisfaction with current and past forest leadership. The Black Hills Forest Staff enjoys a level of support not seen for many years in other parts of the system. - - For these and other reasons the Black Hills attract a highly professional and experienced work force with great skill and commitment to active and aggressive forest management. Whether it is cultural resource preservation, identifying and protecting rare plants, fighting fire, or managing timber, the Black Hills staff stands second to no one in education, experience, and ability. Morale on the forest is high, and people are willing to work to achieve objectives. - - Physically, the area is accessible by an extensive system of roads, some of them system roads well maintained and used, and some of them two tracks created by users. Elevations are not extreme, and topography is for the most part gentle and manageable for vehicles, animals, and people. This characteristic of the Hills means managers have many options to approach any problem, and the public is equally able to invent ways to access or approach their favorite pastimes or pursuits. For example, off-road vehicle riders can and do access much of the forest at will, although a travel management plan will be completed by 2009. - - The Black Hills is not a classic, dry, Western ponderosa-pine forest. The Forest is astonishingly productive because of spring and summer rainfall and it is dependent on frequent low-intensity fire for sustained health. In the world-wide range of ponderosa pine, the Black Hills are the most prolific area for growing ponderosa pine, which is good news for foresters and those who depend on forests for habitat and resources, and bad news for people trying to manage fire and insect activity. - - Since 2000 an average of more than 30,000 acres of forest has burned each year, up from less than 2,000 acres a year through the past century. Insect attacks by mountain pine beetles and Ips engraver beetles are approaching or surpassing historic levels including historic epidemics. There is a direct and ominous threat to lives and property across the forest as a result of fires fed by unprecedented numbers of trees exacerbated by typical cycles of chronic drought, even though the trend for precipitation is increasing over the past 100 years. - - All of these factors have in some way influenced progressive forest management in an environment where effective action should theoretically be difficult to achieve. It is a testament to the hard work and ability of forest leadership that the staff has been able to overcome so many obstacles, manage so many difficult relationships, and still maintain the public trust for its stewardship of preciously held public lands.