Federal lands and the bureaus that manage them may well be entering a period of immense challenge. At first glance this seems surprising, since the Bush administration, led by Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, has proposed large spending increases for the national parks in a move not seen since the days of Mission 66, a 10-year program to revitalize the national parks after their neglect during World War II.

But all is not necessarily well. The parks are really just a small part of the federal estate, some 76 million acres, with both the national forests (Forest Service) and Bureau of Land Management-administered land amounting to around 450 million acres (the national wildlife refuges - administered by the Fish and Wildlife Service - add around 87 million more).

Perhaps the most noticeable change is what is happening to the Forest Service, and by implication the national forests.

In the recent past, the bureau had a lot of trouble adjusting to changes in public attitudes about the primary purposes of national forests. Right or wrong, forests came to be seen more as places for recreation and resource protection than for the provision of goods and services for society (notably timber). Despite its struggles, the Forest Service steadily worked to adapt to those changes in public expectations, with both successes and failures. Yet the agency may now be facing a perfect storm of alarming proportions.

That storm has a number of forces within it.

Fire costs are eating up higher and higher portions of the agency's budget. Reasons include increased growth in rural forest interface lands, a firefighting culture that still largely emphasizes suppression and a Congress that demands it. Some argue that states, counties and localities should pay more of the costs, but that is not likely to happen anytime soon. The agency is also looking at a 25 percent reduction of its costs (it is unclear whether this is regional, federal, or agencywide) over the next three years, leading to a personnel reduction and the possible closure of some campgrounds and other recreational sites. Some of its other core functions are being subjected to contracting, a process that could lead to a legitimate argument that the agency ought to simply be abolished.

If this weren't enough, the agency announced that it will no longer link forest plans with the preparation of Environmental Impact Statements, while at the same time giving energy projects categorical exclusions (applications for permits to drill) at a project level, leading some to assert that this amounts to a "double exemption" from National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.

While there may be very good reasons for some of this and the agency might, if given time, be able to show that its decisions have actually gotten better and timelier, suspicion is rampant.

The Forest Service is increasingly showing signs of being an organization under stress. It has begun internal discussions on what could be described as a return to key ideas that might allow it to better govern itself, restore morale, and make consistent and principled decisions.

While we should wish the agency well, we must consider what the alternatives really are. There are a hundred things that the Forest Service might do better - but that's true about any organization, public, private or nonprofit. What we may be embarking on here is a shrinking of a very visible and cherished part of the public estate and its very public agency. If we want these lands to remain public and open to all, we need to realize what may ultimately be at stake.

John Freemuth is a professor of public policy and senior fellow of the Cecil Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University in Boise, Idaho.