Forestry Collaboration Moves Forward

BONNERS FERRY — The Kootenai Valley Resource Initiative’s long-term goal is to make Boundary County national forest lands economically, ecologically and socially sustainable.

Those goals were developed during the initiative’s sub-committee meeting on March 9.

Planning will follow Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration (CFLR) program’s guidelines in hopes of garnering grant money from the CFLR Fund.

    The committee plans to look at the entire Bonners Ferry Ranger District as a landscape in terms of forest health and then focus on smaller projects.

    The landscape approach to the Bonners Ferry Ranger District corresponds with the objectives of the CFLR program. 

    “Start small but look at the whole district as a landscape,” said Linda McFaddan, U.S. Forest Service District ranger, in reference to planning for the future.

The program’s guidelines are based on a landscape restoration strategy that encourages ecological, economic, and social sustainability.

    A CFLR fund grants money to collaborative groups who have projects that follow the CFLR program. If garnered, that grant money could help fund more projects and could bring costs down to make sales more viable, especially sales with helicopter logging.

    Landscape planning is similar to landscaping your backyard. A large project is easier to break down into smaller projects if you have a rough idea of what the end project should look like. 

    Tackling the small projects one at a time makes the goal more realistic.

    Small projects include vegetation restoration, timber harvest, wildlife habitat improvement, hazardous fuel reduction, watershed improvement and biomass sales. and would cover a few hundred to a few thousand acres.

    The Bonners Ferry Ranger District is approximately 400,000 acres.

    Biomass “makes perfect sense and opens up possibilities,” said Pat Behrens, U.S. Forest Service silviculturist.

    There are plenty of opportunities for biomass in the Bonners Ferry Ranger District. Biomass utilizes the smaller wood that cannot be taken to the mill.

    The Bonners Ferry Ranger District is the community’s backyard.

    Sustainability means having timber stands ranging from young to mature and  old-growth stands for wildlife, timber harves, and recreation.

    “We as a community know the land better than anybody,” said Dan Dinning, Boundary County Commissioner. “(It’s the) community telling Forest Service that we should look at this.”

    The Forest Service welcomes the input on areas that need work, including hazardous fuel reduction, wildlife habitat, public watersheds, or areas that need to be thinned.

    “Its win-win to me,” said McFaddan, about the collaboration of the community with the Forest Service.

    The 20-Mile project will be the first collaboration between the Forest Service and the KVRI Forestry sub-committee.

    Located southeast of town under Black Mountain, the area includes a public watershed that needs forest restoration. Collaboration on a small project that is in the beginning stages will allow KVRI to go through the entire process with the Forest Service.

    “We are building a stronger partnership,” according to Patty Perry, KVRI facilitator between the community and Forest Service.

    The next meeting will focus on learning how to move ahead on the CFLR fund proposal, along with the 20-Mile project.