Idaho Governor Brad Little says local, state, and federal officials along with conservation groups and logging interests have to find common ground to reduce increasingly destructive wildfires in the West.
Little this week told several hundred participants at an Idaho Forest Restoration Partnership meeting that they have the chance to make a new federal-state program called the “shared stewardship” agreement a success. Idaho signed the agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture late last year that allows state participation in federal timber sales and restoration work like prescribed burns and tree planting on private, state, and federal lands.
The partnership is tasked with finding two areas in the state by July 1st for shared stewardship activities that could ultimately become templates for other states.
The group, comprised of logging companies, conservation groups, scientists, and state and federal officials, is meeting for a two-day workshop in Boise to discuss strategy.
The stewardship agreement is an outgrowth of a smaller program called the Good Neighbor Authority, created in the 2014 Farm Bill, which allows Idaho and other states to assist on timber sales and restoration work like prescribed burns on U.S. Forest Service land. Money made from timber sales pays for the restoration work as well as for workers assisting on the projects.
However, landscape-scale projects are needed to treat more than 6 million acres of national forests in the state that are deemed at high risk of burning, and officials realized not all of the areas would be addressed by the GNA.
Logging and lumber company Idaho Forest Group says the shared stewardship program could increase logging in Idaho and Montana by about 10 percent – or 150 million board feet – over the next five to 10 years. (AP)
