Social movements, like ecosystems, evolve. Although many challenges remain, there is little doubt that Americans have changed the way they think about the environment. In some cases, the results are dramatic. For example, in the 1960s the U.S. Navy occasionally used whales for target practice. A quarter century later, the Navy spent over a million dollars to help rescue a single whale trapped under polar ice.

Around 1980, the Sagebrush Rebels wanted federal lands given to the states. This idea was repugnant to all Greens and nearly all economists.

Today, explorations in decentralization and community-based conservation motivate a different constituency. Consider Dan Kemmis, former mayor of Missoula, Montana, and now director of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West. He is one of the leading advocates for giving regional constituencies a greater voice in environmental decision making.

Complementing Kemmis's proposal, his colleague, former Democratic congressman Pat Williams, suggests creating an experimental set of national forests ("Region 7"). They would be pilot projects in alternatives to status-quo management. One option is creating charter forests or forest trusts.

Americans love trusts. They successfully run independent schools, nonprofit hospitals, and museums. Organizations such as Ducks Unlimited and The Nature Conservancy are trusts that own and manage multiple-use lands. National forest trusts would be created to produce and protect diverse values, e.g., wildlife, clean water, recreation, scenery, and, in some cases, timber. Ecologists explain how the sensitive harvest of trees fosters environmental quality.

Our concept of forest trusts keeps the forests public and accepts existing federal environmental laws. It would provide funding and management structures aligning incentives with public preferences. These forest experiments would incorporate local knowledge of conditions and concerns unique to each location.

This reform movement has alarmed reactionary environmentalists. They see a ruse whose ultimate goal is the commercial exploitation of public lands. Many Green groups are organized and raise funds to fight federal lands battles on familiar turf. They have succeeded in a political/bureaucratic context and like the status quo. They insist that federal control is essential to protect the national forests from abuse by rapacious westerners.

One of our friends, a highly respected attorney, professionally active in the environmental movement for 25 years, has been forbidden by his Washington, DC, office from even participating in the discussion. Does this remind you of the reaction to Galileo's "heresy"?

Mainstream Greens also misunderstand economics, believing that it is simply a defense of a pro-business, anti-environmental position. This is a terrible misunderstanding.

As the first author has explained for decades, no good economist argues that the market is a magic elixir of near perfection. It is not and will never be. Markets coordinate wonderfully as they drive toward narrow efficiency, but they ignore much that is intangible and often destroy that which has no price and no owner. Business is naturally rapacious when not held accountable. That's why we need sensible environmental regulations.

Unfortunately, when the regulators are distant agencies, recurrent, systematic problems flow from the politics which drive them. However noble their avowed missions, agencies maximize their discretionary budgets. The problems are not bad people, but rather politics, incentives, and knowledge. Progress requires new institutional arrangements. And forest trusts hold great promise.

It's important to reiterate when it comes to management of federal lands that we do not face a choice between governmental control or laissez-faire capitalism. Public, nongovernmental trusts offer sensible alternatives.

One hundred years of centralized, bureaucratic control of our natural resources have proved costly on many dimensions. Rather than repeating the same actions and expecting different results, it is time to experiment with creative approaches.

The path toward progress is neither costless nor certain. Experiments with alternative management schemes will produce results which in turn will spark adjustments, allowing us to determine which organizational arrangements work best. Surely we won't achieve perfection initially, so adaptability must be built in.

We believe forest trusts have the potential to free the national forests from shortsighted, opportunistic Congressional politics, provide accountability for forest management, and foster ecologically sensitive stewardship.

Sincere, thoughtful Greens will consider and monitor this policy innovation. It has the potential to address the problems they've identified.