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White Mountain AZ Stewardship ContractLocation: near Show Low, Arizona As of December 2007, the White Mountain Stewardship Contract at the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in eastern Arizona is the only active long-term (10-year) US Forest Service stewardship contract - and the first of its kind in the United States. After the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski fire scorched over 467,000 acres of forest and destroyed over 400 homes, communities both within and surrounding the forest invested the following two years in developing Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs) to not only address further fire prevention, but also the economic and social factors that had contributed to the unnaturally-intensive devastation. In analyzing the loss of infrastructure and capacity to both reduce fuels and improve overall forest health for disease-resistance, diverse community partners determined to treat these very challenges as opportunities, and to develop a new cooperative forest-based economy using in its first phase source material that had been considered wood waste: small diameter timber and chips. Forest restoration, beginning with soil conservation, was the first order of business. This landscape-scale fire damaged soils on the National Forest, the Reservation, local government and private property, all of which operate under different environmental and legal regulations. Instead of competing plans, these groups developed a multi-level cooperative plan that allows them to each do their part and contribute to the others – socially, financially, and environmentally. They used new legal tools like the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA-HFRI), the Tribal Forest Protection Act, and the (US Forest Service) Stewardship Contract Authority. The 10- year Stewardship Contract provided a stable source of guaranteed supply of fiber to local industry, using non-cost criteria to exchange fiber for privately funded forest restoration services. As the US Forest Service remains responsible for forest health, it coordinates and oversees the work, and works with a stakeholder monitoring team. To address concerns of the diverse groups, the USFS asked each group to submit a management plan. Each plan was required to improve forest health and sustainability, and to preserve habitat for management indicator species, and to meet general USFS and NEPA criteria. The USFS is allowing each group to test its approved plan on adjacent plots within the forest, so they can work and research together. NEPA analysis on 70,500 acres was accomplished in one year, with no lawsuits. After two years, 31,000 acres are under contract; 19,000 acres of forest restoration have been completed, and thinning costs per acre were reduced from $1100 to $550 – fifty percent. The 13 new businesses working with the stewardship contract provide over 450 new full-time jobs, generating and circulating over $12 million in the local economy. They have received 6 grants of $250,000 each from the Forest Products Laboratory. One of these businesses, Forest Energy Systems LLC, manufactures several products from small-diameter wood, including wood pellets for efficient home heating and cooking that are sold nationwide. For more about:
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