Successful Forest Service Partnerships
Partnerships are at the very core of how the Forest Service does business. There are partnerships that address almost every aspect of land management, scientific research and policy related to forests.
Forest Service partners with Arizona Elk Society to restore meadow system and protect Phoenix’s drinking water supply
In May 2017, approximately 150 volunteers sponsored by the Arizona Elk Society (AES) descended on the Mogollon Rim District of the Coconino National Forest to help restore the high elevation meadow at Long Valley Draw. The partnership between AES and the Forest Service is designed to stabilize and reduce erosion in a headwater meadow system to the Verde River that provides drinking water to the Phoenix metro area. Specific projects completed by AES and the Forest Service included installing loose-rock structures to stabilize headcuts, laying back steep side banks and installing erosion mat and seed to re-establish vegetation, and thinning small ponderosa pine trees that are beginning to encroach in the meadow system. AES provided 35 Forest Service certified volunteer sawyers for the thinning, provided logistical support to all of the volunteers, as well as obtained funding to hire Natural Channel Design to design and manage the restoration work.
Forest Service and Blue Forest partner to build Forest Resilience Bonds
The Forest Service and Blue Forest have worked together since 2017 to build a successful partnership focused on exploring the Forest Resilience Bond. The purpose is to overcome the funding gap for forest restoration, not through increases in public or philanthropic sources, but by allowing private capital to play a role in supporting public land management.
Blue Forest has engaged with over 25 national forests across the agency to build capacity and develop over $100 million in potential Forest Resilience Bond projects. These projects focus on restoration, protecting our communities and forests from catastrophic wildfire for future generations. As of fall 2022, this partnership has deployed financing to carry out $30 million of priority unfunded projects over 40,000 acres on the Tahoe National Forest. In spring 2023, Blue Forest launched their first Forest Resilience Bond in Oregon: a $7.5M project covering 79,000 acres on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest and adjacent lands. Read more here.
Forest Service and historically Black colleges unite to boost diversity in wildland firefighting
A partnership between the Forest Service and historically Black colleges is creating opportunities for students of color to help fight forest fires. The on-site fire academy is part of the 1890 Land Grant Institution Wildland Fire Consortium, a partnership between the Forest Service and a cluster of historically Black colleges comprised of Florida A&M University, Southern University in Louisiana, Tuskegee University and Alabama A&M University. The idea for a consortium came during the pandemic to address a “mission critical area of the Forest Service,” said Stephanie Love, the USDA Forest Service’s national diversity student programs manager and an Alabama A&M alum. The initiative became official in 2021. The hope is every student comes away with a foundation to be successful on one of many possible paths in forestry, ecology, agriculture.
Read the full article.
Creativity fosters success in Alaska partnerships
There’s no shortage of partnership collaboration on the beautiful Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska. Partnerships between the USDA Forest Service, tribes, Alaska Native Corporations, federal and state management agencies, local contractors, and environmental organizations are working to restore streams and forests and deliver benefits to the public.
“We’ve been working on restoration for a while now, but this is an exciting moment because it’s gaining attention for its impact beyond just restoring the landscape,” said Tongass Hydrologist and Watershed Program Manager Katherine Prussian in a recent article. “Now we’re seeing how it is feeding the economy, creating jobs, increasing operators, increasing contractors and working with tribal organizations.”
The last decade of this collaborative restoration work helped inspire the USDA Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy. The strategy is a holistic shift by the U.S Department of Agriculture to focus on community-driven priorities and ground-up solutions within the region to improve federal public land management and community development work for the people of Southeast Alaska. These investments include $25 million dollars that have gone towards 70 individual projects on Tongass and Chugach National Forests. These agreements will support the work of the three partners to advance Southeast Alaska’s overall prosperity and self-reliance and strengthen existing and emerging economic sectors. Approximately a quarter of total envisioned projects were initiated in 2022.
One of the partnerships funded by the USDA Forest Service is the Klawock Indigenous Steward Partnership – aimed at strengthening the existing partnership between the Klawock Cooperative Association, Prince of Wales Tribal Conservation District, Klawock Heenya Corporation, Shaan Seet Corporation, and Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition to implement the Klawock Sockeye Salmon Action Plan. These types of partnerships between local communities, tribes, and the Forest Service allow us to continue building and strengthen relationships, increase employment opportunities for youth, improve trails, boost economic development, and ultimately sustain the Chugach and Tongass National Forests.
