A few weeks ago, I asked the question “is the newly released Shared Stewardship Agreement for Montana different from all the other Shared Stewardship Agreements?”There are quite a few out there.
The Trump administration is moving to give states more control over national forests, U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said at a forest policy conference on Wednesday. He pointed to a new 20-year agreement with Montana that allows the state to manage 200,000 acres of national forest for logging, wildfire response, and other priorities. Schultz said the administration plans to sign up to 40 similar agreements with states and private partners.
While Forest Service partnerships with states and nonprofits are not new, they are rarely so long-term or expansive.
Many thanks to CWP for linking to articles without the paywall! Here are the Q&A’s on the FS website for Shared Stewardship:
- Shared Stewardship is a collaborative approach to land management that emphasizes partnering with states, tribes, and other groups to identify joint priorities and to develop cross boundary strategies that make an impact at the right scale. To achieve this, the agency will leverage new science and new planning tools to ensure that we are doing the right work in the right places.
Do Shared Stewardship Agreements give States “more control” or is it just this one? How exactly does it give the States “more control”? By jointly prioritizing? But forests have always prioritized projects that partners support, either conceptually or financially.. think Denver Water as an example in Colorado.
But would we want the FS to “independently” prioritize private and public land projects? Doesn’t sound very landscape-scale-y. Or maybe sharing the workload of prepping the project.. but then would giving grants to NGOs also give them “control”? Does the Montana agreement actually “allow the state to manage acres of national forest”? Or are they more like other partners?
CWP says that agreements are rarely so “long-term” or “expansive,” so I selected as a check California’s current one
In California, their SSA show that by 2021, the State and the FS were supposed to develop a coordinated, statewide 20 year project plan for vegetation management. There’s also a section on “expanding forest management and associated infrastructure.”
Supply Signals: Investors are unlikely to build wood product facilities for logs, small logs, and woody biomass without a sustainable, uninterrupted raw material supply. The Parties will make their Joint Plan public so investors will know when and where wood supply will be available. The Parties will work with stakeholders to develop additional supply signal tools to guarantee multi-year supply contracts and incentivize new investments in wood processing facilities in California.
How do we find out how it’s going? Maybe someone in California can let us know.
I’ve looked at Oregon, California and the new Montana SSA now, and I would say the new Montana one is different- more specific, focused, detailed, (less generic “let’s work together”) and definitely more transparent. In a way, it’s more of a joint specific program of work with a public dashboard. Does it hand more “more control” to Montana? You can decide for yourself.
Let’s look at the Montana agreement.
Jointly identify a landscape-size area where the State can take on implementation of authorized restoration goals with a 20-year mutual commitment to planning and implementation. The State of Montana and the Forest Service, utilizing GNA, will select one area in northwest Montana to begin project implementation in federal fiscal year 2026. The project should cover an area of approximately 200,000 acres or more on National Forest systems lands with a focus on areas with marketable timber to meet Executive Order 14225
It sounds like within the existing forest plan, the FS and the State will jointly prioritize projects and the State will take on project planning and implementation. Let’s go back to the CWP quote “logging, wildfire response, and other priorities”, I would probably have said “wildfire resilience and timber projects.” The SSA didn’t say anything about PODs (wildfire response?) although maybe it should. But perhaps those and evacuation routes are included in the Montana Forest Action Plan and didn’t have to be specifically called out. The SSA itself says “addressing wildfire risk, forest health and watershed protection” as well as “expand sustainable domestic timber production.”
Plan for future landscape-scale work. Upon successfully initiating one landscape scale project, DNRC and the Forest Service agree to select two to four additional landscape scale projects for a feasibility assessment and implementation planning.
In addition to the large landscape projects described above, the agencies will identify 5-10 site-specific projects to utilize the expanded authorities and streamlined permitting processes provided by the EXPLORE Act to accelerate and broaden the scope of GNA projects to include recreation infrastructure improvements.
Jointly maintain five-year plans of work for Good Neighbor Authority timber sales and projects across all other National Forests in Montana.
Apply the Montana Forest Action Plan. … The agencies will focus on areas where cross-boundary collaboration can yield the greatest benefits.
Why wouldn’t you want to coordinate with the State plans?
Here’s my personal favorite (quarterly reports! bottleneck ID! documented adaptation..due dates!):
Jointly track and report progress on all projects, including acres treated, board feet harvested, and improvements to forest health and community safety on an interactive dashboard. The agencies will jointly release quarterly progress reports which will be used to assess effectiveness, identify bottlenecks, and adapt project selection and implementation strategies as necessary to meet the goals of this agreement. The joint interactive dashboard shall be released to the public by January 1, 2026.
Also..
Commit to an annual sustainable volume of up to 100 MMBF through DNRC Good Neighbor Authority projects in response to the President’s directive to increase harvested timber volume by 25 percent on federal lands.
Both parties will commit to assigning one staff person to serve in statewide coordination and implementation on Good Neighbor Authority to facilitate progress outlined in this agreement by October 1, 2025.
I know some folks don’t like the timber industry, but each project is litigatable, no matter who does the NEPA work. So all the usual protection factors are in place.
Forest plans are done.. so why not?
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Note for Academics: comparing the states’ agreements and exploring the similarities, differences and outcomes would be an interesting project, wonder who might fund it?). There are probably some excellent stories to tell of working together. Maybe even interview those involved to see what is working and what isn’t.