Blackfoot-Swan Landscape Restoration (BSLR) Project

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This project has become the "Mid-Swan Landscape Restoration and Wildland Urban Interface Project" on the Flathead National Forest. Please click here to visit the new project page and associated project documents.

About the Project | Project Details | Background | Public Meetings | Keeping Informed | Meet the Team

Leadership Thoughts on the Value of Large-scale Landscape Restoration Efforts

“The Blackfoot Swan Project is a critical management experiment aligning with Region 1‘s Strategies.  We are working with researchers and partners, including the Southwestern Crown Collaborative, and using the best available science to find innovative solutions for some of our most challenging land management problems.

This project is ambitions and challenging. It requires collaborative, team players with drive, expertise in their field, and the courage to do things differently.”

~  Dave Schmid, Deputy Regional Forester, Region 1

“As one of the three Forest Supervisors of Blackfoot Swan Project I’d like to emphasize how crucial this project is to the success of our Forests’ programs of work.  In my opinion I believe this project is of not only regional, but national significance.

As such, Bill Avey, Chip Weber and I are paying very close attention, in support of our Rangers, on this project.”

~ Tim Garcia, Lolo National Forest Supervisor

About the Blackfoot-Swan Landscape Restoration Project

Nationally, large, landscape scale planning efforts have emerged as an alternative to multiple, smaller planning efforts. While this shift in scale can certainly be tied to a need to increase planning efficiency, the predominate need is to be more effective in managing Vista of the Blackfoot-Swan Landscape Restoration Project with the Swan Mtns. in the backgrounterrestrial and aquatic pattern and process functions across the landscape. As federal land managers and leaders, we are committed to working across administrative boundaries and taking a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to assessing and analyzing the restoration opportunities within the Blackfoot-Swan Landscape Restoration Project (BSLRP). This project provides an opportunity to renew and build partnerships to increase our collective capacity for restoration needs across a larger landscape.

BSLRP is an approach in Region 1 to National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) efficiency and managing at a landscape scale. The BSLRP project will focus on management needed to conserve, protect, enhance or restore resiliency of terrestrial and aquatic components in light of ongoing and anticipated disturbance factors, such as fire, insect and disease and changing climate. This project is anticipated not only to complete the objectives set in the 10-year Southwestern Crown Strategy, but to continue the work of fuel reduction, restoration and resiliency beyond the 10-year Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration program. We look forward to working with our internal and external partners, Tribes, the Southwestern Crown Collaborative and interested members of the public as we develop this project to address restoration needs in this unique and valuable landscape, while also providing the ecological goods and services on which local communities rely.

Leanne Marten, Regional Forester, Northern Region
Chip Weber, Forest Supervisor, Flathead National Forest
Timothy Garcia, Forest Supervisor, Lolo National Forest
William Avey, Forest Supervisor, Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest
Sara Mayben, Deputy Forest Supervisor, Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest
Richard Kehr, District Ranger, Swan Lake Ranger District, Flathead National Forest
Rachel Feigley, District Ranger, Seeley Lake Ranger District, Lolo National Forest
Michael Stansberry, District Ranger, Lincoln Ranger District, Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest
Sandrah Mack, Project Team Leader

Blackfoot-Swan Landscape Restoration Project Details

BSLRP View of a Stream in the Blackfoot Swan Project Area

The Blackfoot-Swan Landscape Restoration (BSLR) project covers approximately 1.3 million acres of the Southwest Crown of the Continent, spanning three ranger districts on three national forests: Swan Lake Ranger District of the Flathead National Forest; Seeley Lake Ranger District of the Lolo National Forest; Lincoln Ranger District of the Helena and Lewis & Clark National Forest.

Working across administrative boundaries, the project uses a landscape-scale approach to accelerate implementation of restoration activities to improve or maintain the functions and processes characteristic of healthy, resilient ecosystems.

The primary purposes of the project are to:

  • Conserve terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity and wildlife habitat by maintaining or restoring forests that are more resilient to threats and stressors, such as fire, insects, disease and climate change;
  • Reduce the risk of uncharacteristic wildfire;
  • Reduce hazardous fuels within and adjacent to the Wildland Urban Interface to provide for firefighter and public safety; and
  • Provide needed ecological services to resource dependent communities.

 

Western spruce budworm in subalpine fir is creating multi-story stands with high fuels component that could compromise western larch (Kraft Creek area) Underburn of recently thinned stand to re-introduce fire in the warm dry habitat type (Meadow and Smith Creek areas) Mixed conifer stands in the cool moist habitat type (along the Swan River) Open ponderosa pine stand with evidence of previous management activity (Swan Lake Ranger District) Dead white bark pine (Seeley Lake Ranger District) Dead whitebark pine that has been encroached by subalpine fir within cold habitat types (Scapegoat Wilderness area)

 

Background

Vista of the Blackfoot-Swan Landscape Restoration Project with the Swan Mtns. in the background

The BSLR project falls within a Southwestern Crown Collaborative (SWCC) Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Project (CFLRP) area. The project is being collaboratively developed with the SWCC and other partners and interested persons. The project will develop an approach to accomplish restoration goals identified in the 2009 SWCC CFLRP proposal, and will also identify other restoration opportunities based on new information and analysis. A core team has been established to oversee development of the BSLR project.

In conjunction with the 2009 SWCC restoration goals, the BSLRP team pulled together its strategy with the help of experts and literature on landscape ecology and restoration from across the country. For example, Restoring fire-prone Inland Pacific Landscape: Seven Core Principles (found above in our Quick Links section) is the culmination of the work of 15 of the nation’s leading ecological restoration experts, and has played a critical role in formulating BSLRP’s goals and strategy. Landscape ecology considers (a) the development and dynamics of spatial heterogeneity; (b) interactions and exchanges across heterogeneous landscapes; (c) the influences of spatial heterogeneity on biotic and abiotic processes, and (d) the management of spatial heterogeneity. The BSLRP approach seeks to address these critical considerations for landscape restoration.

Public Meeting Information

The BSLRP team anticipates holding public meetings at key stages during project development. Meetings are anticipated for the following stages: sharing existing condition assessment findings, developing desired conditions, refining the purpose and need and developing the proposed action. Additional meetings will also occur during scoping.

Keeping Informed & Participating in Project Development

View of the Blackfoot Swan Project Area with mountains and low clouds

If you have questions or need additional information about the BSLR project, please send an email to BSLRP@fs.fed.us or call Sandrah Mack, Project Team Leader, at 406-329-3817.

If you are already on the project mailing list for one of these forests, Flathead, Helena-Lewis and Clark and Lolo National Forests, you should automatically be on the BSLRP mailing list. If you are not on a mailing list, information will be provided on how to be added to the project mailing list when the project is listed on the SOPA.

Public meetings and field trips will be held at key stages throughout project development to keep partners and interested persons informed. Meetings will primarily be held in the communities of Big Fork, Seeley Lake and Lincoln. Information, to include meeting and field trip dates/times, will be routinely posted on this webpage (see Public Meeting Information above).

Scoping will occur after collaborative development of the proposed action. Additional information about the opportunity to comment during scoping will be provided to the project mailing list, in news releases and posted on this webpage. Opportunities to provide written comments may also be provided during public meetings and workshops.

A formal 45-day comment period will occur for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). This comment period will be initiated after publication of the Notice of Availability of the DEIS in the Federal Register. Additional information about this opportunity to comment will also be provided to the project mailing list, in legal notices in the newspapers of record and posted on this webpage. The 45-day comment period is not anticipated to occur until late 2019 at the earliest.