About our guest author: Melody Starya Mobley’s experiences as the first black woman serving as a forester for the USDA are remarkable: both for the firsts she embodies and for the years of abuse and oppression she experienced within that system.
Now, Melody shares her personal stories to create positive change for groups historically excluded from accessing American natural spaces.
With the few federal protections that exist currently being stripped away, it’s more important than ever for stories like these to be told. To read more of Melody’s writing, visit her website.
Image credit: Kirth Bobb
I am a 67-year-old African American woman from Louisville, Kentucky. All these characteristics have affected my relationship with my chosen discipline—and the field’s often negative reaction to me.
My ethnic heritage
Forestry has long been a segregated profession and area of use. To this day, less than 3% of forest workers are African American, and they tend to occupy low-grade clerical positions. But historically, African Americans were crucial to forestry—while enjoying resources like cabins for camping was restricted to Whites only.
So, African Americans have a very long and complex history in the field: we did much of its hard work but were not allowed to experience the benefits. This core culture of enslaved labor, segregation, and exclusion stays with me even in my retirement from the USDA Forest Service.
During my formative years (the 1970s through 1980), I was based in a large urban area where the Forest Service had little presence. Louisville, KY, is a very southern city, even if it doesn’t appear so on a map. I faced a lot of racism growing up there and I never heard of the Forest Service until I moved to Washington State to attend college.
My environmentalist beliefs
I grew up loving nature, as did my Indigenous maternal grandfather and his daughter, my mother. They instilled in me a strong love of nature and a passion for protecting it.
I was, and still am, an environmentalist—which does not fit with the Forest Service’s strong culture of cutting forests to produce timber. I was young and forests were sacred places, sanctuaries to me. So I never fit in. Oh, as a professional forester, I knew trees have a life span and fire is a natural part of many ecosystems. But the way the Forest Service removed forests and reforested with monocultures has always bothered me—and it still does.
I believe in cutting trees to create products that we need. I do not believe in eliminating forests with huge clearcuts and replanting monocultures. Nor do I believe in eliminating critical wildlife habitat.
My love of people
Throughout my 28-year career with the Forest Service, which stretched from 1977 to 2005, I was much younger than most of my colleagues. Combined with my race and gender, this was one of several factors leading to my struggle for credibility during my career.
Perhaps surprisingly, another aspect of my personality that did not fit within USDA Forest Service culture is that I’m a people person. I never lost sight of the fact that the Forest Service manages public lands that belong to the people, and I strongly believe that we should manage forests and rangelands according to their wishes. However, Forest Service culture says that foresters know what is best for the land, so the public should just go away and let them do their jobs.
I strongly disagree with this approach. It cost me a lot of ridicule and other negativity during my career and being passed over for promotions to GS-15 and entry into the senior executive service. My Washington Office timber management director once told me he could never see me in his position; that I should pursue something in administration. Once again, my skills as a forester were undercut by Forest Service culture of “cut, cut, cut.”
Continuing my work towards greater diversity
While all these facets of my life did not fully fit the Forest Service’s expectations, I’m still working to bring more diversity of perspective and experience to forestry. We can’t save our environment without shifting those expectations.
Read more of Melody’s writings
on her website.