To obey the Scout law ...

A Scout is Trustworthy. A Scout tells the truth. He is honest, and he keeps his promises. People can depend on him. --Boy Scout Law (Rule No. 1)

Over the last two days, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has devoted five full pages to an exposé of the manner in which the Boy Scouts of America has managed forest lands that it owns. The articles are based in part on exhaustive research done by the Hearst Newspapers, the P-I's parent organization.
For decades, membership in the Scouts has introduced boys in the Pacific Northwest to the outdoors -- hiking, camping, mountaineering, survival techniques. No one would deny the many benefits that so many kids have obtained from this training, or from the lessons in citizenship, resourcefulness, cooperation with others, and self-confidence that they have learned while working their way up through the various ranks of Scouting. It seems, however, based on the articles in the P-I, that the Scouting organization itself has cut corners in maintaining its solvency, doing so at the expense of the very environment that Boy Scouts are taught to reverence; has paid unusually high salaries to its adult leaders; and could profitably go back and study the implications of its own lessons in trustworthiness. The P-I articles document case after case where property has been clear-cut for its timber, often at the expense of existing scout campsites. Some of the cutting has damaged adjacent streams, lakes, and habitats for salmon, timber wolves, bald eagles and spotted owls. Some timber sales were "sweetheart deals," signed with present or past Boy Scout leaders. A 15-year-old New York scout, after returning last summer year to a 5,000 acre Boy Scout camping area in the Adirondacks, and seeing what had been done to the land since his last visit, lamented: "I just didn't really want to go anymore. It was ruined." A forester who surveyed logging on BSA property near Crater Lake said, "They savagely logged it." Boy Scout leaders defend most of the logging, claiming it was done selectively and was at times necessary to remove dying trees that posed a danger of falling. Even more disturbing than evidence of poor stewardship for the land and disregard for the environment, however, is the fact that much of the land had been donated to the Scouts in the belief that it would thus be preserved from logging or development, that the Scouts would naturally maintain these woodsy areas so that they could be used and enjoyed by scout campers throughout the years to come.

"It's ironic. People work hard to save a piece of property for the Scouts and then (the Scouts) turn around 10 or 15 years later and go sell it to developers."

--Seattle Post-Intelligencer, quoting a former Washington Public Lands Commissioner

Land that is not logged is often sold to developers. Attempts by conservation organizations to purchase the property have often been turned down when the BSA finds it can get more money by selling it to developers. Forest land overnight becomes tract housing.

Boy Scout officials often claim they are simply selling unneeded land to obtain vitally critical money to support their programs. And yet, the CEO's for local scout councils make significantly more than the average CEO for other non-profit organizations in their area. In Houston, the Scouting CEO makes $300,000, compared with an average locally of $150,000. In Fort Worth, the BSA executive makes $275,000, compared with an average $110,000. In Seattle, the CEO of the local council makes about $180,000. As the article points out, boys never see these highly paid executives. What they get out of scouting comes from the training received from, and examples set by, scoutmasters and other volunteer workers -- all of whom freely work without pay.

Scouting provides valuable training to young people. But somehow its leadership has gotten off track. People donate money to scouting and similar organizations in order to help the kids. They don't realize that they are supporting executive salaries high in the area of six-figures.

Even more disturbing is the fate of the land donated for scouting purposes. How many donors have spent lives loving pieces of wilderness, or at least wild property, and have eventually donated the property to protect it from development and to permit young people in the future to share their happy experiences? How many donors would have given the property if they knew what was to become of it? The article quotes one case where the Scouts seemed to wait only until the donor had died before clear-cutting the property.

Being "trustworthy," as the Boy Scout handbook observes, means keeping your promises. It means people can depend on you. In many cases, the present leadership of Scouting has seemed questionably trustworthy in its stewardship of donated forest lands.