I had never seen this thread before. I can't even read the first page of it because I know the idiocy of the USES and other Ecology agencies I would find within would drive me too crazy to type anything. I have been around far too many gov't employees who think the answer to all problems is to just give them more money to solve their special problem.
Here is another classic USFS Wilderness story - they asked me for help obtaining seed from a certain tree species. But only from within a specified small local area. The best example of the species that can be found are inside a Wilderness area - and actually, all through a constructed campground (must have been in there before the Wilderness designation, I don't get that part). These were also the only trees I could find with seed that year, after basically volunteering a day of time away from a paying job looking for them (rain/rest day for me). I told them the seed could be easily obtained by just cutting some 6" twigs off the ends of the branches. Can't - Wilderness. Can't touch the live native natural trees even inside a man constructed campground, it would be disturbing the "Wilderness".
They also suggested I needed a permit, to collect seed - for them to use. There was only 3 days left before the seed would ripen and blow away in the wind, but it would take them 3 weeks to make a decision on the permit. I also basically knew that if I was a "non" profit group of some kind, with a nice salary and benefits, they would gladly hand over a thousand dollars for the seed. But if I wanted to make a casual $200 for a short work day and 4 hours of travel time, I would be robbing the poor Government with my "profit".
So, they would just have to suffer with the 'Good Enough' rather than the 'Perfect' and use seed from outside the local area. Because, Wilderness.
Whole area was shot through with invasive Asian Honeysuckle and they were completely helpless in making a decision on what to do about that. I told them to wrap a chain around the big ones, next to the road (not a roadless "Wilderness", somehow), and pull them out with a vehicle, to wipe out the main on-site seed source, pronto. Can't - Wilderness - no use of vehicles. Herbicide - nope, special Herbicide policy still under construction after 5 years of study. I am fairly sure all those non-native Honeysuckle are still there (four years on, now), spreading steadily through the Wilderness, while the USFS employees whine and moan that they don't have enough money to hire a bunch of people to spend 3 hours pulling little Honeysuckle bushes out of the ground by hand and f-off and drive around for the other 5 hours of the day, all on a nice salary/benefits package. (And Honeysuckle really is a bad invasive plant problem - best to start eradicating it as soon as you discover it.)
