Jim Doran, J.D., IBDR

Community Forestry Resources

P.O. Box 888

Twisp, WA  98856

(ph) 509-997-2295

(cell) 509-293-1535

(fax) 509-997-2192

jimdoran@mymethow.com

June 26, 2006

Memo on Stewardship Workshop

Missoula MT – June 22 & 23, 2006

Introduction: The workshop entitled “Stewardship Contracting on Federal Forest Lands in the Northern Rockies” was held in Missoula Montana on June 22 & 23, 2006. The Workshop was sponsored by American Lands Alliance, funded through a Ford Foundation grant and facilitated by Mary Mitsos of the National Forest foundation. The Planning Committee members should be complimented on the substance and the presentation of these materials.

What I learned from the Workshop: Stewardship authorities and process is an evolving field. I am happy to say that even though I desperately try not to learn anything new, these several important jewels sunk into my mind.

1. The collaborative group is authorized to provide the Forest Service bid evaluation team with input for the award evaluation criteria for any stewardship project that has been made part of the collaboration process.

2. The collaborative group is authorized to have a representative sit on the Evaluation Team for the evaluation and award of bids on a stewardship project that has been in the collaboration process.

3. A stewardship contract can be imbedded within a HFRA fuels reduction project to allow for the use of retained receipts for restoration work, and thus avoid the misconception that HFRA is “only” for fuels reduction work.

4. Stewardship contracts can split pricing for small round-wood with little value from the pricing for merchantable materials.

5. Integrated Resource Service Contracts (IRSC) are much more flexible and easier to modify as a project is implemented as opposed to Integrated Resource Timber Contracts (IRTC). It may be beneficial to have more projects proceed as a service contract.

6. The professional contractors that sit on the collaborative group need to step back and formally NOT participate in the design of the stewardship project once it gets to the unit by unit design stage.

7. The monitoring team would benefit from being involved with the collaboration for the project from the very beginning. Similarly, the collaboration process would benefit by the intention to monitor the project.

8. Try to get a budgeted monitoring team commitment into the Decision Memo, then it will be required for the project.

9. A contractor pre-bid meeting should be done with each stewardship “draft solicitation” for contractors to give the Forest Service Contracting Officer input into the design of the project. Then the formal solicitation is issued.

10. There is a great tension between the needs of the forest and the needs for funding for the project administration and implementation. There is a bona fide fear that the timber component of a project will be expanded simply to generate enough funding for the service work and that the project will be driven by this need for funding. There are still “timber targets” and “acres treated targets” that drive the agency.

a) The restoration needs, especially the roads issues, cannot be funded entirely from the retained receipts from “goods for services”.

b) Project boundaries can be adjusted to assist in the creation of retained receipts.

c) In a stewardship contract have a long list of “optional services” that are needed and that will exhaust the receipts within the same project.

11. Separate the “roads” issues from the other restoration work to allow more retained receipts to be applied to restoration activities besides roads. Note: The “roads” issues could easily use all of the retained receipts on every project.

a) Press the agency and the U.S. congress to establish an appropriated “Roads Maintenance & Removal Fund” to deal with the expansive roads issues in the western federal forests. This will remove a certain amount of the fear of high-grading and allow more restoration work to be done besides roads. This will also allow for the focus on roads issues that is needed.

11. Bring the budget and timber targets and acres treated targets out from the shadows and into a full and vigorous discussion within the collaboration process.

12. Transfer the knowledge from one Forest to another and from one Region to another. People know how to do a lot of this already. Connect the dots.