First African American named to lead US Forest Service

ASSOCIATED PRESS • June 29, 2021

Veteran forester Randy Moore has been named chief of the U.S. Forest Service, the first African American to lead the agency in its 116-year history. Moore, 66, replaces Vicki Christiansen, who has led the agency since 2018. The Forest Service, a division of the Agriculture Department, oversees 193 million acres of public lands in 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. As a regional forester, Moore has been on the forefront of climate change, most notably leading the region’s response to the dramatic increase in catastrophic wildfires in California over the last decade.