Jim Furnish grew up visiting the Black Hills National Forest with his family and later worked for the Forest Service. He rose through the ranks and served as the deputy chief of the agency from 1992-2002.
Furnish said he was saddened by findings about the Black Hills timber industry that were revealed in a February National Forest study.
“This general technical report clearly shows that the levels that they’ve been logging at are not sustainable,” he said. “In fact the technical report said if you keep logging at the level there won’t be any trees left in the Black Hills in 50 years.”