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Allan K. Fitzsimmons, New Wildlands Fuel Coordinator at the Department of Interior
Who is He
Allan K. Fitzsimmons is the Department of the Interior's Fuel Coordinator. This newly created position will implement fuel treatment on lands managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service.
Background
Fitzsimmons has 25 years of prior experience working with natural resource issues, including previous service at the Interior Department. From 1983-1985 he served as a special assistant to the Deputy Director of the National Park Service. Then from 1985-1989 he was the assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife, and Parks; from 1989-1992 he was the Deputy Under Secretary for Policy, Planning, and Development at the Department of Energy.
He has written numerous articles de-bunking the concept of ecosystem management. He also wrote a book entitled, Defending Illusions: Federal Protection of Ecosystems. The book is about how efforts to make federal protection of ecosystems the centerpiece of national environmental policy rest on weak science and a worldview that places concern for the well-being of nature ahead of the well-being of people.
Environmental contributions
On October 21, 1996, Allan K. Fitzsimmons wrote the article "Federal Protection of Ecosystems - Train Wrecks In The Making".
In this article he explains the imprecise nature of an ecosystem and the incorrect notion that we can pick and choose where an ecosystem is natural. Fitzsimmons makes a great point in mentioning, "They take for granted that the government has the sagacity and depth of understanding needed to prescribe desired future conditions of each of hundreds or thousands of ecosystems throughout the nation in all their complexity as well as to manage all the human actions that transpire on the landscape in such a fashion as to achieve those conditions." Therefore we can predict an ecosystem only as well as we can predict a human or civilization's future behaviors. [1]
Personal Life
Fitzsimmons is an avid rower and he and his wife reside in Woodbridge, Va. He's the father of three daughters and has five grandchildren.
References
http://www.doi.gov/news/020828.htm
http://www.foe.org/camps/eco/interior/fitzsimmons.html
http://books.google.com/books?id=8FRP2ZbvL0gC&dq=allan+fitzsimmons