THERE is much talk today about "reinventing government." The goal is to both improve outcomes and save dollars. The Forest Service is an excellent candidate for such reforms.

The Forest Service's creators are credited with high ideals, but America's sylvan socialism has suffered the liabilities of socialism elsewhere. The Forest Service was created because of an expectation of timber famine. Since then, the Forest Service has predicted five timber famines (which have yet to materialize) and used these threats to expand its prominence, power and funding.

And while it is true that there is a scarcity of undisturbed ecosystems, there is no scarcity of wood fiber. There are three reasons why. First, the U.S. began with a huge inventory of mature timber for harvest at low cost. Second, the private sector manages productive timber sites well. Third, we've had great technical innovation. When dealing with commodities in a market economy, scarcity has yet to win a race against creativity.

In sum, the Forest Service is not, and has never been, essential to a secure timber supply. It was a well-intended but misguided response to both real and imagined problems.

Forest Service reform can serve two purposes: to increase the ecological sensitivity with which the land is treated and to increase the efficiency with which the forests are managed. Forest Service atrocities have been documented in detail: streams silted up, giant sequoias leveled, habitat destroyed, billions of dollars wasted. Years of reform attempts have had no great effect. The Forest Service's size and the bureaucratic imperative of budgetary growth have thwarted attempts to induce fiscal or environmental responsibility.

We want our most productive national forests to be as efficient as private commercial forests while respecting environmental values. To achieve these ends we suggest nothing radical. Rather, to reinvent those national forests best suited to commercial timber, we should carefully and with environmental sensitivity sell them to the highest bidders over a 20-year period. Here's how.

Our national forests fall into three categories: productive commercial forests, inherently unproductive forests on high, dry, and cold sites, and those forests which, depending upon technology and timber prices, fall somewhere in between.

Trees like to grow where it is warm, wet and low. These are the most productive forests, suitable for commercial timber. Few of our 122 national forests, perhaps one-third at most, have these features. The Forest Service runs them essentially as commercial forests. They are roaded. They have been logged and are on harvest rotations. They are distinguished from private forests largely by inefficiency and the political influence on management. These lands are candidates for sale.

Incentives to produce timber efficiently and cheaply are far stronger in the private sector than in the government sector. And deed restrictions can ensure that the environmental values of these lands are better protected than on either traditional private forests or the national forests.

For example, riparian areas can be protected by buffer zones. Conservation easements can provide recreation areas. Restrictive covenants can protect against commercial development. Ecologically critical areas, such as elk calving grounds, can also be protected through deed restrictions.

Companies like Champion International might manage such lands. Such firms know how to grow trees efficiently and effectively. Firms like Champion also have experience managing land for both recreation and timber. In Western Washington, they manage lands to increase deer habitat. This has resulted in both healthy deer herds and profitable timber. The lands are also managed for recreationalists who pay modest fees for access.

Private ownership is no panacea. There is no one perfect system and no costless solution. We seek arrangements in which individuals have incentives to act in the public interest. The system we propose fosters recreation and aesthetic uses of the land and efficient timber production.

And importantly, the taxpayer will no longer be forced to pay for poor Forest Service management practices. The financial responsibility would be with taxpaying timber companies while opportunities for political meddling and pork-barrel politics are reduced. Such conjunctions of sound economics and ecological stewardship can be a basis for "reinventing government."