Shared Stewardship

Coming Together for Tomorrow’s Forests

The challenges facing America’s forests are urgent, and the growing momentum behind shared stewardship makes this a pivotal moment to act. With every state involved—and many renewing their agreements—we have a real chance to expand what’s already working. We’re ready to partner with you to target the right places, use the right tools, and invest at the right scale to ensure our forests are healthy and productive, and fuel rural prosperity for generations to come.

Why Shared Stewardship Matters Now

The Forest Service is committed to creating healthier and more productive forests, safer and thriving communities, and a reliable forest products economy. For us, it is not just about how much work we do, but on the long-term vitality of the land. To succeed, we need to work together.

Since 2018, we have signed shared stewardship agreements with all 50 states. Under Chief Tom Schultz’s leadership, we are renewing and expanding these agreements with state, other governments and organizations, focusing on the results we can achieve together—not just the process.

Shared Stewardship turns shared priorities into real work on the ground—saw logs to mills, fuels treated, trails maintained, culverts fixed, and landscapes restored. The work reflects a commitment to shared resources, shared planning, and shared outcomes.

Working Together for Better Results

When we work together, we can share resources and set shared priorities across whole landscapes. This helps us address forest management work more quickly and more predictably. We also want to make better use of the tools we already have, including the Good Neighbor Authority, to help us coordinate work across boundaries.

This shared work produces many benefits, including reducing wildfire risk to communities; strengthening rural economies and supporting healthy forest products markets; and improving recreation and public access. Together, we can achieve a clear, shared vision to jointly develop priorities and strategies that reflect local needs, state goals, tribal sovereignty, and federal responsibilities—a unified roadmap for action.

Shared Stewardship helps us pool funding and capacity, leverage strengths across jurisdictions, use existing authorities and tools more strategically, coordinate investments at the right scale, and respect statutory roles and government-to-government responsibilities.

Shared Ambition in Action

States and other governments who are renewing their Shared Stewardship agreements are already demonstrating what is possible when we work together:

• Alaska is advancing shared forest-management priorities through cross-boundary coordination on fuels reduction and wildfire mitigation, infrastructure upgrades, modern milling investments, and support for private and non-federal landowners. Read the announcement

• Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians advancing work to reduce wildfire risk, improve forest health and protect cultural resources across 155,000 acres on the Umpqua and Rogue River-Siskiyou national forests. Read the announcement

• Georgia is coordinating cross-boundary active forest management across priority landscape supporting a wide range of priorities. Read the announcement

• Idaho is expanding timber production, accelerating restoration, and increasing fuels reduction treatments across 16.5 million acres of national forests. Read the announcement

• Montana is leveraging tools like the Good Neighbor Authority to expedite forest management and wildfire-risk reduction across 200,000 acres in northwest Montana. Read the announcement 

• Wyoming is multiplying partner participation in project development and implementation, supporting collaboration across timber, energy, wildlife and habitat, recreation, and livestock grazing work to strengthen resource management across jurisdictions. Read the announcement

• Utah is using expanded Good Neighbor Authorities to increase cross-boundary active management and reduce community wildfire risk. Read the announcement