Forests know no jurisdictional bounds. Insects, fire, and disease spread quickly without a thought to who has authority to stop them. So to be successful, efforts to manage forest health, and its impacts on people and critters, can’t focus on who owns what.
That’s where Good Neighbor Authority comes in: Not so much tearing down the fence between federal and state-owned forests, as creating a gateway to manage together, to the tune of 11 Idaho projects and counting. Idaho contains 20 million acres of U.S. Forest Service land; 63 percent is eligible for management (the rest is roadless and wilderness areas).
“Of that, our assessment showed 8.8 million is at risk to insect, disease and fire conditions,” said Craig Foss, Idaho Department of Land’s Forestry and Fire Division Administrator. “So 70 percent of that manageable land base is at high risk.”
GNA allows the state to accomplish what the feds can’t, or won’t right now — work crucial for historically declining forest health and to prevent more record-breaking and financially devastating forest fires. Results have been encouraging, with once-stalled efforts in federal forests moving forward, including thinning, restoration, and timber sales.
“The national forest system land… has been in a pretty steady decline since the 1970s, and mortality in the national forest is at an all-time high,” David Groeschl, deputy director and state forester for the Idaho Department of Lands, told NWM&T in an interview for its first GNA story in 2017, the year IDL started work in national forests.
Read more on this from Coeur d’Alene Press at https://www.cdapress.com/local_news/20180330/being_good_neighbors_boosts_forest_health.