Four Forest Initiative Will First Focus On Coconino And Kaibab

Forest Service officials announced the plan on Jan. 28, which sets out a timeline for public input and completing an environmental assessment on the first two forests. The process will take a little over a year, with the final environmental impact statement expected in April or May 2012.

“We’ll do an analysis for the Coconino and Kaibab forests, which encompasses about 750,000 acres, then we’ll move on to the Tonto and Apache-Sitgreaves,” said Forest Service Environmental Policy Specialist Paula Cote.

She noted that the sheer size of the project was part of the reason for dividing the assessment among the forests.

“It’s such a big area. It made sense to combine Coconino and Kaibab, and the other two,” she remarked.

The initiative is the first of its kind to be attempted on such a large scale. Navajo County Supervisor David Tenney pointed out that it also has the support of organizations that historically did not work together, such as Northern Arizona Wood Products Association and Sierra Club.

“They are all eager to see the Four-Forest Initiative implemented,” noted former Navajo County Government Relations Administrator Rod Ross. “The thing that makes this so significant is that level of agreement.”

A public comment period will be held through March 14 on proposed action for the Coconino and Kaibab national forests. Several public meetings are scheduled during February in Flagstaff and Williams.

Once the analysis is complete for those forests, work will move forward on the proposal for Apache-Sitgreaves and Tonto. Cote noted that it could be a couple of years before residents see action being taken on those forests.

Proposed actions for the Coconino and Kaibab include:

* Using commercial thinning to sustain old growth, promote tree size diversity, reduce fire risk and restore historic grassland areas.

* Encourage the growth of Gambel oak and aspen trees to promote forest diversity.

* Conduct prescribed burns to maintain tree spacing.

* Fence sensitive riparian areas.

* Remove access to closed, unauthorized and user-created roads.

If implemented, the plan will be in place for 10 years. In addition to restoring and improving the health of the forests, the plan is intended to stimulate the local economy by creating jobs. Contracts would likely be awarded for mechanical thinning of the forests.

In August the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLR) awarded the Four Forest Initiative $2 million in federal funding, the largest award of 10 projects that received funds from the agency.

“This initiative, located on the Apache-Sitgreaves, Kaibab, Coconino and Tonto national forests, focuses on the restoration of the southwestern ponderosa pine ecosystem and will treat up to 50,000 acres per year,” the USDA announcement noted. “The work will include prescribed fire and management of natural fires for restoration objectives. Mechanical thinning will also engage new industry to ensure that nearly all of the cost of removal of the thinning byproducts is covered by the value of the products.”

The mechanical thinning will be an offshoot of economic development being promoted through the White Mountain Stewardship Contract. The 10-year contract was awarded in 2004 for the thinning of approximately 150,000 acres. The USDA notes, “This stewardship contract is designed to restore forest health, reduce the risk of fire to communities, reduce the cost of forest thinning to taxpayers, support local economies, and encourage new wood product industries and uses for the thinned wood fiber.”

The 2002 Rodeo-Chedeski fire, which burned almost half a million acres, has played an important role in moving the initiative forward.

“The relation is that the Rodeo-Chedeski fire was a landscape-style fire that consumed nearly 500,000 acres, and that’s the kind of fire we’re trying to prevent by conducting landscape-style thinning,” Ross said. “It provided the stakeholders with the impetus to find an agreement on how to treat forests.”

More information, including the official draft proposal and public meeting schedule, is available online at www.fs.usda.gov/goto/Kaibab/fri or by calling Cote at (928) 226-4686. The initiative also has its own website at www.4fri.org.