Check out the Forest Conservation Act of 1976. Here it is in a nut shell.
"The National Forest Management Act reorganized, expanded and otherwise amended the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974, which called for the management of renewable resources on national forest lands. The National Forest Management Act requires the Secretary of Agriculture to assess forest lands, develop a management program based on multiple-use, sustained-yield principles, and implement a resource management plan for each unit of the National Forest System. It is the primary statute governing the administration of national forests"
BUT.........
" The Act requires the Secretary to promulgate an extensive list of regulations regarding the development and revision of management plans. Several of these required regulations address wildlife resources and environmental protection. For example, the Secretary must specify procedures to ensure management plans are in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. Also, the Secretary must specify guidelines for developing management plans that: ensure consideration of both economic and environmental factors; provide for wildlife and fish; provide for the diversity of plant and animal communities; ensure timber harvesting will occur only where water quality and fish habitat are adequately protected from serious detriment; ensure clearcutting and other harvesting will occur only where it may be done in a manner consistent with the protection of soil, watersheds, fish, wildlife, recreation, aesthetic resources and regeneration of the timber resource"
I've said it once and I'll say it again, I'm for resource use and extraction, but in a manner that won't fugg hunting to drastically for everyone for generations to come...
The forest are not managed soely for timber harvest, if that was the case the whole forests would have been logged!