we protect wild areas and old growth, while actively promoting restoration

The Inland Northwest has a myriad of public lands from the vast 1.5 million acres Colville National Forest to 3 National Wildlife Refuges as well as state, county, and city lands. Federal and state forest lands are managed for multiple uses and all of these uses from increases in recreation to timber harvest have an impact on our lands. We also need to work toward incorporating and securing tribal rights - such has hunting, gathering, and cultural practices - on their historic homelands. These are big tasks that The Lands Council tackles head on.

America’s forests face unprecedented and cumulative threats. The problems include accelerating climate change, a century of fire suppression and lack of appropriate fire, rapidly expanding development in the Wildland Urban Interface, a vast and crumbling road network, the spread of invasive species, increasing motorized recreation, firefighting costs spiraling out of control, and other stressors. These problems are harming wildlife, degrading water quality and exposing communities to unparalleled fire danger.

Wildfire risk and drought are driving potentially ecologically harmful forest practices that are not grounded in best science appropriate for different forest types and fire regimes. All of this results in reduced ecological resilience which puts at risk the public benefits our national forests provide. In short, our public lands are not ready to adapt to the changing climate and the agency’s efforts in the direction to-date are underfunded and out of scale with the need.

The Lands Council has responded to this public lands challenge by helping start three collaborative efforts in our region and is an active member of the Northeast Washington Forest Coalition. Working with timber companies, county commissioners, recreationists, and rural leaders we have started to find common ground on managing our public lands. The results are better restoration projects, increased forest health, protection of large fire tolerant trees, and support for permanent protection of the most pristine parts of the forests. The Lands Council is also working to keep public lands open to all citizens, and not turn them over to private ownership. We are working with elected officials to increase funding for public lands, as well as increase the pace of forest restoration.