"The solution is private property. The sickest forests are the ones mismanaged by the government. If we are going to have urban homesteading, we need some rural homesteading, too. I fantasize about retirees caring for trees."
You beat me to it! I posted nearly your exact same seniments on another enviro-wacko thread yesterday. If people are truly concerned about conservation, they need to understand that the government isn't going to do it for them, so they need to save up their pennies and buy their own land, and fence & post the perimeters well.
We own a whopping 2 acres. We've added 100+ trees (pine, black walnut, red oak, hazelnut, tamarack pine) in the past decade. This is an old dairy farm, but it was an amazingly barren wasteland when we bought it. Not so much as a lilac bush or a stand of rhubarb...but buildings all dating from 1906 and before. Go figure!
I, too, love trees, but totally understand the forest service mis-managing areas due to the pc-cr@pola foisted upon us all from the enviro-dorks. :(
Congratulations. I have a dream of planting black walnut trees on a place in the Ozarks. I hope I get it done.